Star Trek: Endeavour - Book One: Return to the Delta Quadrant
by Dwilt
Summary: The year is 2391, Starfleet is beginning to see multiple threats looming on the horizon: The Undine, the Klingons, angry Romulans, and the Borg. Resources are beginning to dwindle, and Starfleet knows of only one place where to get them - The Delta Quadrant. Note: This story may start a little slow, reviews welcome. Book 2 has begun!
1. Chapter 1, The USS Endeavour

Commander Alona Benson sat at an outdoor table at the Majestic Bistro, enjoying a cappuccino and soaking in the San Fransisco sun. Commonly known among the Starfleet Headquarters personnel as the "Mess Deck", it sat across the street from the HQ entry gate, the same place where CMDR Benson was acting chief-of-staff for the very famous, Admiral Kathryn Janeway. She had just closed her eyes for a moment enjoying the warmth of the sun when a shadow covered her face.

Opening her eyes, it took a second for her recognize Admiral Janeway standing there with a cup of coffee in her hand and a smile on her face. "Hi, Alona" she said. Alona stood up and offered a seat to which Janeway sat down.

"Gorgeous day" Alona said.

"Yes it is and there was no fog this morning either!" Janeway said, then, "I have something for you" she said as she laid a felt case on the table and pushed it towards Alona. "Admiral, I didn't know you felt that way about me" Alona said with a grin. Janeway snorted and shook her head, Alona looked down at the case. "Open it" Janeway said. Picking it up, it reminded her of a case in which someone might give a ring in or some earrings.

She opened the case and smiled, inside a single gold pip glittered in the sunlight at her. "Congratulations Captain" Janeway said with a grin, sipping her coffee. Alona sipped some of her cappuccino and then placed the new pip on her uniform. When she had finished, she noticed Janeway had placed a PADD on the table too, the screen showing personnel transfer orders.

"That pip is part of your transfer orders. Alona, you're getting your own command" Janeway said, then held a hand up when Alona immediately opened her mouth. "I know what Starfleet told you and your...siblings. Think about it, you served as first officer on two different ships, one of which was a Galaxy. One of those has plenty of firepower and you know it, so if Starfleet was going to remember to keep its promises, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation" she said.

"What command am I getting?" Alona asked.  
"I'll tell you about it in my office" Janeway replied, tapping her combadge. "Admiral Janeway to Starfleet HQ, two to beam to my office please" she said. When they stepped into the office proper, Alona sat down in one of the chairs in front of Janeways desk. Janeway sat down, took another sip of her coffee and sighed.  
"Alright, you have two choices, either the U.S.S. Edinburgh, a Nebula or a retrofitted starship for deep space exploration for a purely volunteer mission that, if you decide to refuse nothing will be held against you"

"What is the volunteer mission Admiral?" Alona asked

"The mission involves you going to the Delta Quadrant, there are resources that still need to be extensively mapped, the spacial anomalies more extensively looked at, as well as all those new species we met while Voyager was out there. You are looking at a minimum five year mission so please remember, there are people out there where they had wanted to talk to Starfleet some more when we got home. Thats why many of them helped us along" Janeway said, then added "You know, some of those people I promised I would or someone in my place would come back to meet with them. Theres a planet out there full of humans, taken from Earth from different times"

"I've viewed your logs Admiral. Can you tell more about this volunteer mission, also, rather than sending out a retrofitted starship, wouldn't it be better to send out one of those new Deep Space Expeditionary Heavy Cruisers? What did they call them by the way?" Alona asked.

"No, Starfleet is keeping all the Wayfarer-class starships delegated to stick inside Federation territory and to patrol the neutral zone, you know the Klingons are getting frisky. Also theres only three of them, the next one is still under construction and won't be completed for at least a couple years, and they all have Captains that aren't transferring for some time. But, just between you and me, I am going to see if I can commandeer that ship. Its been a while since I have been underway, I want to see if I still have my starship legs"

"It was the council" Janeway continued, "That made the choice to send a ship back out there, not me. In fact, I was against them sending a ship out to the Delta Quadrant, but" Janeway shrugged her shoulders and took a sip of coffee, "We need the resources, Starfleet didn't expect the Wayfarers to consume so much during construction. So they decided that a Sovereign or a Galaxy class starship would be equipped enough to do the job so Utopia Planetia is finishing retrofitting one of those two for deep space exploration, Utopia Planetia didn't give me specifics" Janeway said.

"Starfleet wanted, after reading all my logs dealing with the situations and the peoples out in the Delta Quadrant" Janeway continued "To make sure someone has more options than I did, more people to work with, a tougher, more capable ship, to handle any situations they ran across while out there. There were plenty of times while I was out there where I thought Voyager would be destroyed and we would all die, but, thankfully I brought almost all of us home with Voyager still intact" Janeway trailed off.

Alona furrowed her eyebrows, "Admiral, a five year mission would mean that I would not get very far into the quadrant. When you went through that Borg transwarp hub, you were still a good fifteen to twenty years out weren't you" Alona said.

"More like ten to thirteen years if I kept my stops to a minimum and maybe kept the ship running home at warp 9. Officially, this is a five year mission, when in actuality, its going to be around two to three years, however, you also could be out there for at a decade or more too, so thats why this mission and her crew is purely volunteer. In fact, I have offered this to other Captains this mission, all of which had refused to go. Thats why I am asking if you would be willing to go" Janeway said.

"Admiral, what do you mean this could be a two to three year mission but possibly a decade or more? You're confusing me" Alona said. Was she planning on utilizing a ship with transwarp capabilities? Alona didn't she could, no ship in Starfleet is capable of maintaining a stable transwarp conduit to travel through and Starfleets own transwarp technology is less than reliable at this point in time.

"The thing is, near the center of the Azure Nebula there is a brown dwarf and a single class Y planet. In orbit of that planet is a transwarp gateway that will launch you into the Delta Quadrant. While you're out there, you're not just going to be looking at spatial anomalies and mapping resources. You will also be charting locations for landings of transwarp conduits and locating areas to establish new Starbases out there and making new friends for the Federation" Janeway said.

"Ma'am, our transwarp technology still in the experimental stage, as in not fully stable and could launch the ship further out than the target coordinates? Hell, ma'am, if the target coordinates are miscalculated by as much as a decimal point or two we could end up in another galaxy or even between galaxies" Alona said.

Janeway nodded, "Yes it is, that is why this mission is voluntary. Since the tech is still experimental, the gateways location and such is the other reason why Starfleet wanted a Sovereign or a Galaxy-class sent into the Delta Quadrant. Again, command wanted solid ships to do the job" she said.

Alona nodded agreement. Although, when she thought about it, its kind of unheard of that a newly minted Captain to receive command of one of the advanced starships in the fleet. 'A Sovereign or a Galaxy' she thought. She then glanced over at Admiral Janeways pips. They made her an Admiral when she got back from seven years in the Delta Quadrant, a trip that should have taken her 70 years. Perhaps if she got her ship back in say, two or three years instead of the allocated five all the while completing what she was ordered to do she might be bumped up too. However, I may not be able to get the ship back in that amount of time either, especially if they end up in another galaxy. Two to three years. Pfft, not going to happen. Then again, if I refuse, I can simply take command of a Nebula. A Nebula or a retrofitted Sovereign or Galaxy. Fuck it

"Admiral" she said looking into Janeway's eyes, her own intense.

"I'll do it" Alona said.

"Good, I will have a runabout arrive from the ship at 1500 hours" Janeway said, sipping her coffee, then grimaced. It was getting cold. "Which gives you eight hours to get ready" Janeway said, looking at her clock. Alona stood, smiled, thanked Admiral Janeway. "Whats her name?" Alona asked. Janeway picked up her PADD and tossed it at Alona. "Dossiers of your senior officers. Unfortunately I could not dig up the schematics for her, I was busy, you know how that goes. Her name is the Endeavour, its on the PADD. Dismissed" Janeway said picking up another PADD and activating her viewer. "Alona" Janeway said as Alona got to her office door. She turned towards Janeway, "Yes Admiral?" she inquired.

"Thanks, you don't know how much I appreciate you doing this. You are a good officer, a good friend, so I can't let you leave yet in good conscience without saying good luck. You're going to need it" Janeway said, "Now go, you have a ship to go take command of" she added waving her away. Alona smiled and left.

When Alona got back to her apartment, her smile had not faded. Just like that, she got her own command. She typed in the command to bring up the dossiers, and then she grinned. "NCC-1895-C, U.S.S. Endeavour" she read aloud. 'Just wait til Mom and Dad hear about this, hell, Justin and Marie are going to shit themselves' she thought. 'Endeavour' she thought, where had she heard of that ship name? Then, it hit her. It was the Endeavour-B, one of the few remaining Ambassador-class starships still in service at the time, was the sole survivor of Wolf-359. Alona remembered some engineering lectures while going through the Academy on how the engineering crews basically got that ship back to Vulcan on a mixure between repeatedly venting and repressurizing the shuttlebays, maneuvering thrusters, and the barely working starboard impulse engine. It took the ship nearly a week to get to Vulcan using such methods of propulsion, it would have taken longer had a Vulcan freighter not detected her. It was decided by the ships senior staff to order the distress signal disabled for fear the Borg would home in on her emergency signals.

The ship had suffered such extreme damage, Vulcan would not let her near any of the orbit facilities for fear her warp core would go at any minute resulting in a fabricated repair dock for her they assigned at the L5 Lagrange point of Vulcan. When the captain had been killed during the battle, the First Officer took command of the ship and what remained of her bridge crew then effectively managed to play dead until the Borg left Wolf-359. She then limped to the nearest friendly port. Miraculously, the damage the ship had received caused the computer to initiate and complete an emergency shut down of the warp core, then prepped it for emergency ejection thereby preventing a core breach. When the repair crews began working on the warp core of the ship, repairing the battle damage it had received, they had found an oddity with the dilithium crystals: they went inert. Starfleet Engineering Corps had never seen, heard, or even thought that dilithium could go inert. Since then, another case as what happened to Endeavour-B has not been found. After Endeavour's repairs had been complete she had served for a few more years then was decommissioned and placed in the Academy training ship flotilla.

She scrolled down a bit on the PADD and found they had a copy of the ships plaque on it. 'Odd they would have a picture of the plaque in here' she thought, then read the quote at the bottom, "Ambition leads me not only father than any other man before, but as far as I think its possible for man to go" - Captain James Cook. 'Fitting' she thought. "Better get packed" Alona said to herself.

The Delta Quadrant is still one of the most unknown areas of space within the Milky Way and after reading Admiral Janeways logs, one of the most inhospitable places a Federation ship and her crew could go. Sure, there were plenty of friendly people there, some of which were more friendly than others. Then there was the Borg. No one really knew that most of the Borg controlled space was in the Delta Quadrant, however, the information did not surprise Starfleet when it was recieved by Voyager the first time. Starfleet had suspected that the Borg were operating either Delta Quadrant or the Gamma Quadrant due to the lack of any sufficiently resistant species out there or most of the resistant species out there had already been assimilated, also due to the lack of any data on either locales. It was a far fetched assumption at the time.

Truth be told, it was a safe assumption, there were hardly any space faring species that were capable enough to defend themselves in the Delta Quadrant. When Captain Sisko located the Wormhole near Bajor that lead deep into the Gamma Quadrant, the Borg were no where to be found in that Quadrant. Voyager ran across very few species, besides the Undine, that were strong enough to fight against the Borg and it seemed that most of the Delta Quadrant seemed like it was underdeveloped or undeveloped planets and species. Granted there were plenty of space faring species out there, however, most were either raiders or small hegemonies of a star system or two.

With the Federation establishing Starbases out that far without any real support or real time communication might prove disastrous. Alona did not think it would work out quite as well as they would hope. In order to have a decent presence out in the Delta Quadrant, the Federation would have to have several colonies, ships, and alien species willing to work together with similar goals in order to crew the ships. Not to mention to have plenty of resources readily available for use, such as dilithium. Materials to build ships, food, housing, support bases and the list goes on.

She shook her head. None of that is her problem to think about. Her job is to successfully Transwarp into the Delta Quadrant, then get her ship and crew back to Earth as intact as when she took command. That isn't going to be the case, she knew already that during away missions, things happen, and there were plenty of ships out there that had the capability to seriously damage or destroy both a Sovereign-class and a Galaxy-class. Especially in the Delta Quadrant. She put her four bags on her bed.

Looking around, Alona began to put stuff away, cleaning the apartment as best as she could. Then she began to put dust covers on all the furniture. She stopped at her desk and sat down for a moment. "Computer" she said. The computer chirped. "Access information on U.S.S. Endeavour, NCC one-eight-niner-five dash charlie" Alona said. The computer chirped again.

"NCC one-eight-nine-five cee is the registry number for the U.S.S. Endeavour, a Sovereign class starship. Current commanding officer is Commander Harold Kim, acting" the computer began. A Sovereign!

"No computer, I want to know what did the ship do before the change of command, where had the ship been, when was it built? What accomplishments the ship and crew have made" Alona said.

"Construction of the U.S.S. Endeavour began on Stardate 63357 and was completed on Stardate 64482. On Stardate 64484, Admiral Benjamin Hayes took command of the vessel to utilize as a command ship. Since Admiral Hayes took command, U.S.S. Endeavour has logged exiting Earth Spacedock four times and has accumulated 284 warp flight hours. The U.S.S. Endeavour has also logged assuming geosyncronous orbit over Rigel, Vulcan, and Andoria. Whenever U.S.S Endeavour was not in use by Admiral Hayes, the starship was docked in Earth Spacedock and was reputed on Earth Spacedock for being known as Section 78 due to the ship remaining at dock for an extended periods of time. U.S.S. Endeavour has no known awards or service commendations of note other than a Flag Officer Command Ship citation" the computer finished.

What? The ship is almost four years old and shes only clocked 284 warp flight hours? Shit. "Computer, before Endeavours recall to Utopia Planetia and her last logged exit from Spacedock, how long was the ship at dock?" Alona asked.  
"The U.S.S. Endeavour was docked for 1 year, 9 months and 18 days before her last logged exit from Earth Spacedock and her recall to Utopia Planetia" the computer said.

"Computer, while the ship was docked at Earth Spacedock for those extended periods, was there anyone on board her at those times" Alona asked.

"During her docked time, a skeletal maintenance crew was kept aboard to maintain ships systems, however, it was repeatedly documented that the second officer remained onboard while the ship was docked" the computer said. Well, at least they maintained her, but thats odd.

"Who was the second officer?" she asked.

"The Second Officer during the time the ship was docked is Commander Harold Kim" the computer answered.

"What is the Commanders current assignment?" she asked.

"Commander Kim's currently Acting-Captain of the U.S.S. Endeavour, his normal duty is First Officer of the U.S.S. Endeavour" the computer said.

Interesting. My first officer served under Admiral Hayes. Why did he stay aboard when all there was a basic maintainence crew aboard her? Something I will have to ask him about when I get aboard her. She leaned back in her chair and placed her feet on the desk. She glanced at her clock, it was 1120. Alona picked up the PADD and began reading the dossiers, before she knew it, she had dozed off. She woke to her combadge chirping. She tapped it quickly while looking at the clock.

"Captain Benson" she said.

"Good Afternoon Captain, I am Leiutenant Morgana Drake, your Operations Officer. I am reporting that we will be arriving in 15 minutes" a female voice answered cordially.

"Thank you Leiutenant, what is the runabouts name?" Alona asked.

"U.S.S. Cook" Drake said. Alona smiled.

"Thank you again Leiutentant, I will meet you at the North San Francisco Shuttleport, Benson out" Alona said with a grin.

The runabout landed with such precision and smoothness that Alona thought the computer had landed it. She knew it wasn't uncommon to hear of pilots using the computer to make a soft landing. Perhaps her operations officer was a stickler for efficency or was wanting to look good for the new captain.

She snapped back into focus as the side door opened to reveal a perfectly proportioned woman with nearly paper white skin, silver hair, and gold colored eyes. Alona's first thought was that the woman that stood before her must work hard to keep that figure. Her uniform indicated she worked the operations department of a ship, Lieutenant Junior Grade pips indicated her rank.

The woman stepped down the ramp and off the pad and stood in front of Alona and extended her hand. "Leiutenant Morgana Drake, pleased to meet you Captain Benson" the woman said. When Alona grasped her hand, it was warm, had a pulse but felt too controlled and solid. 'What species is she?' Alona thought.

"Its nice to meet you too Leiutenant, may I call you Morgana?" Alona asked.

"You may, sir" Drake replied calmly.

"Thanks for picking me up" Alona said.

"You're welcome Captain"

They both walked in silence into the runabout. Drake sat down at the console and began preflight checks and contacted Starfleet traffic control for departure. Ten minutes later they were breaking orbit, cleared of traffic and jumped to warp.

"We will be arriving at Utopia Planetia in 10 minutes, sir" Drake said.

"Good, that gives me 10 minutes to get to know you Morganna, tell me about yourself" Alona said smiling. She hated having to be the one to break ice.

"As you may have surmised, I am a Mark-2 Soong type android Captain, but I am not sure about what you would like to know" Drake said. An Android? Well that explains some of it.

"Wait, I thought Soong type androids could not be made, due to that ruling made by Starfleet Judiciary. You're a sentient being and all that" Alona said.

"Creation of Soong type androids were never prevented, just the current active models at the time were deemed sentient beings and could not be deactivated for disassembly and study. However, about seven years ago, Captain Data and Captain LaForge had gone to the Soong Foundation and allowed deep penetration scans done of Captain Data, essentially mapping out his systems, positronic brain, and internal components while they were trying to unlock the "Data matrix" locked within the model B-4's positronic net. This allowed the Soong foundation to begin producing Soong type androids to assist Starfleet in all situations. It did take them around six years to figure out how to get the positronic brain from overloading and the lifeform dieing not long after when it was activated as well as the internal components to work properly" Drake said.

"If I might add Captain, the Soong Foundation has been lobbying the council and Starfleet Judiciary for adding artifical lifeforms into the Starfleet Constitution" she said.

Alona nodded, understanding that. In fact, she whole heartedly agreed with the addition of artificial lifeforms as well as self-aware, sentient photonic lifeforms into the constitution, remembering the many different log entries she had read over the years from the Enterprise crew where Captain Data had felt he was an expendable, disposable being and not a true sentient lifeform the personal logs of the EMH Mark 1 from Voyager was interesting as well. Wait, Mark 2 she said?

"You said you're a Mark-2 model? What happened to the Mark-1 models?" Alona asked. Drake smiled at Alona. Shes smiling, she must have an emotion chip or is capable of simulating emotions. Interesting.

"Captain, theres only one remaining Mark-1 and he's Captain of the Enterprise" Drake said. Ahh, she must have meant Captain Data, a unique perspective on the Mark-1 models.

"Well, how about your name. Where did you come up with the name 'Morgana Drake'?" Alona asked.

"While in Starfleet Academy I majored in Xenology and Anthropology, and Artificial Intelligences, however, I have a minor degree in Xeno-Diplomacy and History, specializing in Earth History. I am most intrigued by rampant piracy in the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, and the Caribbean during the 15th and 16th centuries. I really did not have a name until I went to the Academy, everyone that I knew and met had simply called me Silver, which I think that was because of my hair color.

"While being called a color seemed to fit for the time being, I came to dislike the name, almost the same way a human dislikes a poorly chosen nickname. So I combined two of my favorite pirates names: Sir Henry Morgan and Sir Francis Drake. I did take the feminine version of Morgan though, to match what I appear as, sir" Drake finished.

"What exactly do you mean by 'what you appear as'?" Alona asked, already knowing where she was going to take this.

"Well I appear as a female human Captain, however, andr-"

"You are a woman Morgana, I can prove it to you that you are" Alona said.

"How Captain?" Drake asked skeptically, an eyebrow raised.

"Well, you look like a human female as you said. Thats part of it, you wear your hair long like a human woman would. You hold yourself and walk like a woman would, you sound like a woman, you have breasts, you have a wide hips like a woman" Alona said.

"That is true but that is part of my programming. Remember, I am not truely alive, therefore, I do not have a menstrual cycle nor am I capable of one, as I do not have a uterus. Isn't that key to indicate being female?" Drake asked.

Alona shook her head, "You may say that is part of it, but not the whole picture. You're a woman to me and I am pretty sure many people who look at you will think the same thing. From a distance you look exactly like a well proportioned human female who just doesn't see the sun very often. In fact, I thought you were a human when I saw you from a distance but what you need to do is explore human femininism, use the holodeck or the holosuites, read up on women of Earth" Alona said.

Drake sat there for a moment, processing the information, "I think I understand Captain, like all Soong-type androids, I do wish to become human or the closest thing to one and you are telling me that I am doing a good job appearing like a human female" Drake said. Alona smiled at Drake, "No, while appearances are part of what make us who we are, not just being part of the species, you need to go beyond appearing female to being female. Understand?" she said.

Drake nodded as the helm console began chirping.

"We are arriving at Utopia Planetia Captain" Drake said.

"Which slip are we in?" Alona asked.

"Retrofit Construction Dock 33, sir"

"No longer slips, huh? Still, its way in the back. Oh, by the way, its either 'Ma'am' or 'Captain' please. Last I checked, I don't have a penis so 'Sir' just won't do" Alona said.

Drake looked at Alona for a moment, then nodded, "Aye, ma'am" she said, then hailed ahead to the ship, "Runabout Cook to U.S.S. Endeavour, requesting permission to dock. Endeavour Actual sends regards"

"Copy Cook, Permission to Dock is granted. Shuttle Bay 2 is clear for approach" a voice said over the comm.

_Acting-Captain's log, Stardate 67848.5, Commander Harry Kim-Acting. I just received word from Admiral Janeway that a Captain has volunteered to command the Endeavour. Her name Alona Benson. Never met her but her service record is exemplary, but also most of it is classified so high, I didn't think Starfleet had something that secret. As such, her last post was Chief-of-Staff for Admiral Janeway which says light-years. She also was first officer for two ships prior to working under Admiral Janeway. I think Admiral Janeway presented the job to Captain Benson and she took the job and knowing Admiral Janeway, she wouldn't just offer this job to just anyone who would've volunteered. I hope that she can handle being out in the Delta Quadrant._

Commander Harry Kim said. His combadge chirped, "Sir, Captain Benson's runabout will be here in about 10 minutes" a female voice said. "Very well, thank you Ensign" Kim replied, "End of Log entry" Kim finished.

Drake landed the runabout as smoothly as she landed on Earth. When the struts touched deck, Alona opened the side hatch and stepped out onto the deck. When her foot touched deck, an annoucement went throughout the ship: "Endeavour Aboard" followed by a sharp ding from a bell. A short, young looking man of asian decent with cropped black hair, deep brown eyes and friendly demeanor about him stepped up to Alona with a smile and an extended hand, three pips on his uniform. "Permission to com aboard?" Alona asked as she grasped his hand and returned the smile, "Permission Granted. I am Commander Harry Kim, sir, your First Officer. Pleased to meet you" he said.

"Pleased to meet you too Commander, can you walk with me to my quarters? I want to get settled in quickly" Alona said.

Kim nodded and waved his hand towards the turbolift. "Of course, this way sir" he said.

They stepped into the turbolift and the doors shut. "Deck two, Captains Quarters" Kim said. The turbolift began humming as it moved along. Alona turned to Harry. "Harry, if you want, when we're in private you can call me Alona. Less formal settings, being called by my first name doesn't bother me, but while we're in front of everyone its 'Ma'am' or 'Captain' please. That should go with everyone, the 'ma'am' instead of 'sir' part that is" Alona said breaking the ice. 'Again' she thought with a unnoticed wince.

"Ok...Alona" Harry said with a smile, he had to resist the urge, she could tell.  
This woman reminded him of Janeway alot. The way she seemed to walk into any room and have a commanding presence in it as well as a calm, enjoyable demeanor. Someone whom said she has an open door policy about anything and means it. She was also not bad on the eyes too. She has grey eyes that remind you of an overcast sky. Her fine, mid-shoulder-length hair is colored like coffee with cream which she wore in a uncomplicated pony-tail. Kims eyes wandered down from her face in a quick glance. Alona wasn't in uniform, her shirt did have a low-neckline. Man, this woman knew how to show herself well. Her skin was nicely tanned from the San Francisco sun and she has a very athletic build, a near-perfect hourglass shape.

'Figures' he thought, 'I find the perfect woman, who isn't hologram or seperate species from me and she ends up being my commanding officer. How the hell does she keep that figure?'

"How are the retrofits coming along?" Alona asked, snapping Kim back to reality.

Kim cleared his throat, "Uh, they are actually almost finished, in fact our CMO is due to report aboard in about three hours, after that we will have all senior staff aboard. From there the retrofits are pretty much just putting the last coats of paint on and we're ready to get underway"

"Are the Ospreys' on board yet?"

"No, we'll be picking them up off Neptune on our way out of Sol"

"Good, what about our M.A.C.O. troopers?"

The turbolift doors opened and Kim stepped out, Alona following him. "They are already aboard. The Colonel and I were assigning them quarters when you arrived, we were almost done" Kim said.

"There's no rush, now that I am here, I can help you out by taking some responsibilities off your shoulders"

"Yes ma'am and thank you" Kim said, turning right at a T-section. At the end of the hall was a door. He stopped in front of it.

Alona stopped at the door, she read the bar of the door. 'Commanding Officer's Quarters' it said, followed by deck, section, frame, and compartment numbers. "Is there something wrong?" Kim asked. Alona shook her head, "No, its just, becoming captain of a ship just hasn't sunk in all the way yet. I see it says Commanding Officers Quarters and my first impulse it to buzz before entering" she said.

Kim smiled, "I know what you mean" he said, then opened the door for her. Alona stepped inside, it was dark. "Lights" she said and the room illuminated. It was huge, much bigger than her apartment in San Francisco. She turned back to Kim and grinned. "It's big" she said. Kim nodded, then began showing her: the head, sonic shower, kitchenette, dining and living areas, bedroom and so on.

"I am surprised they have a kitchenette installed here. Most people have forgetten how to cook, very good. I can actually do some cooking" Alona said. Kim squinted at her, "You can cook?" he asked. She nodded, he smirked. "I'll have to try it then sometime" he said.

Alona placed her bags on the couch and looked around some more, then turned back to Kim. "Thanks Harry. Can you, in say four hours, call all senior staff to the conference lounge, I want to meet everyone, get a system and personnel status update on all departments, you know how it goes" Alona said. "Sure, if theres anything you need or want please let me know" Kim said and began to step out. He turned back to Alona as sat down on her couch, she looked back at Kim with a raised eyebrow.

"Almost forgot, Computer, transfer all command controls and codes to Captain Alona Benson, authorization: Kim-kappa-alpha-five-seven-two"  
The computer chirped, "Authorization confirmed, transfer complete. U.S.S. Endeavour now under the command of Captain Alona Benson" it said. "Thanks" Alona said. Kim nodded and left without another word.


	2. Chapter 2, Departure

All senior officers were called the conference lounge in four hours as requested, Alona showing up last. Everyone was standing when she entered the lounge. When she sat down, everyone else followed suit. Alona decided she would start the meets and greets.

"Hello everyone, I am Alona Benson, the new commanding officer for the ship and hopefully the duration of the trip" She said with a smirk. Smiles were returned to her. That is good, she wanted her people to understand she wasn't a hardass and to be relaxed enough to talk to her when needed.

"I was hoping to get everyones name and what they do on board the ship, I have already met Commander Kim and Leiutenant Drake, but everyone else I would like to meet" She looked to her left and nodded at the officer. "How about you start, name, rank, and what position you hold" Alona said. The officer looked around the table, clearly not used to the attention, then cleared his throat.

"Viir-Keim, Lieutenant, and I am your Tactical Officer and Chief Security Officer...ma'am" he said. Alona was intrigued the moment she saw him when she stepped into the room. A Jem'Hadar working in Starfleet. She never thought that would ever happen. By the looks of it, Starfleet had a to tailor a special uniform for him to wear, mainly for the kestrel white tubes seen running through the fabric but also for his size. He is over well over 2 meters tall and very muscular, even for a Jem'Hadar. Full Lieutenant pips adorned his uniform. Viir-Keim looked around the table once more and nodded, "Before you ask, yes, I am the first Jem'Hadar in Starfleet" he said quickly. It seems he is not used to a female commanding officer, Alona smiled "That is good to hear, you next" she said, nodding to the officer to her right, a Vulcan.

"I am T'saal, Lieutenant jay-gee, I am your Science Officer ma'am" he said calmly. T'saal is tall, even for a Vulcan. Short, cropped dark brown hair accented his oddly blue eyes. He must have had some human genes somewhere within his family. He looked to his right. Alona looked at the person he was looking at. A Bajorian, but there are Borg implants in her skin.

A liberated Borg, Alona remembered her from the dossiers she read. She had almost forgotten that she had some Starfleet firsts working aboard her ship.

The Bajorian took a deep breath, "Lieutentant Zari Bari ma'am, I am your Chief Engineer" she said. Bari had neck length light brown hair and hazel eyes. She is very short and her small, lithe frame reminded her a young girl. Alona looked at her for a moment and smirked to herself, poor girl was shy, afraid of being judged as a Borg, not as an individual. Bari was chewing on her lower lip, still looking around the table but not moving her head much. Must of been hard going through the Academy for her but you wouldn't know just by her scores and recommendations from all of her former commanding officers about how much of a god-send she is in engineering. She should grow accustomed easily, after all, the Borg adapt. Alona nodded at her, "Please to meet you, Ms. Bari. From what I have heard about you and the miracles you can do with ship engines and systems, I am sure you will be wonderful" she said. C'mon Alona, you could do better than that.

Bari nodded and looked to her right. A calm and good looking Trill sat next to her. He smiled at everyone, "Lieutenant Commander Daro Radis, your communications officer ma'am. Just so you know ma'am, as well as everyone else, I am Joined" he said. To Alona, he was pretty good looking, slightly wild dark brown hair, calm blue eyes and a voice thats tinged with laughter. His jovial attitude fits the small, well placed laugh lines of his face. Alona nodded. Keep his beaming to a minimal.

Recently, tranporters have been adjusted to accomodate Joined Trill. Earlier transporters bio-filter would register the symbiotes at parasites within the body and would connsistently purge it while the person was in the transporter buffer. Digital Death. Several symbiotes had died, thus Trill stopped using transporters until the technology advanced to be adjusted their design to accomodate the symbiotes.

Unfortunately, the adjustments came late for some. Alona remembered some reports where the hosts of the symbiotes had gone into a catatonic state or had commited suicide because they felt that they had killed the symbiote somehow, but had not died to many peoples amazement. It appeared that if a symbiote was purged while in the buffer, the transporter would finish rematerializing them with completely repaired tissues, something that no one had thought a transporter would do. However, as adjusted as the new transporters may be, most Joined Trill are still uncomfortable using them. This being the case, Starfleet now has transporter classes for Joined Trill cadets and officers to go through where to do a short site to site transport essentially transporting them across the room and back to get them used to using transporters.

"Noted, thank you Commander" Alona said. Radis smiled, and looked across the table to the Klingon sitting there. The Klingon looked around the table quickly then nodded at Alona, "Greetings Captain, I am Ensign Kolaas, your chief helmsman and navigation officer" Kolos looked like your typical Klingon, however his long black hair was pulled back into a pony tail and he wore a Starfleet uniform. As allowed by Starfleet, on his uniform blouse Kolos had a few Klingon Defense Force awards and medals. Alona only recognized one: Advanced Starship Combat Piloting Badge with the batlh-duj slashes. The batlh-duj slashes are multiple colored slashes to indicate which class or type of ship he was an expert at piloting or ships he had served on as a combat pilot, she couldn't remember which. Alona didn't know what each color meant but he had at least five slashes that should could tell. Hopefully, one of those ships that he is a combat pilot for is something as big as Endeavour.

"Is this your first Starfleet assignment Mr. Kolaas?" Alona asked.

"Yes sir, however, this is not the first starship I have served on" Kolaas said. Alona raised her hand.

"Please, everyone, when you address me its either 'Ma'am' or 'Captain'. I am a woman last I checked" Alona said, then looked down and grasped her breasts, looking up with a smile "They're still here, so no more 'sir' if you please" she said to some returned grins.

Alona looked at Kolaas, "I understand, its a hard habit to get rid of Ensign, keep working at it" she said with a smile. She looked at the woman to the left of Kolaas.

"I am Doctor Jan Novana, your Chief Medical Officer ma'am" she said. Novana was a pure-blood Betazoid. More than once, Alona had heard some scuttlebutt about how beautiful the docter was. Now looking at her, Alona understood why. She had the almond shaped, black eyes of a Betazoid and astonishing auburn colored hair and high cheekbones and a body to die for. The only thing one might say was a blemish of Novana was her small, yet sharp nose. Alona remembered from Novana's dossier that she had been noted for being quite the empath and telepath at her other posts, however, most of her previous superiors stated that she an excellent physician and has a wonderful bedside manner, also that she did not use her mental abilities without permission. Her service record indicated she had been mentored by Dr. Beverly Crusher when she was teaching at Starfleet Medical, in addition, almost her entire career she had served on starships with a single deep space station to break the monotony. A good background for this kind of assignment.

"Doctor, I hear most of your previous assignments were on starships, what do you think of Endeavours sickbay?" Alona asked, smiling. Novana snorted and shook her head, "Captain, like other Sovereign-class starships, theres too many bells and whistles, not nearly enough bio-beds required for a crew of this size, an office that is too big for the duties I perform, and medical laboratories that about as useful as pissing into the wind" she said. Alona heard the barely audible intake of breath from a couple of her officers around her.

'Thats right' Alona thought. Dr. Novana was renowned and remembered most by being similar to Dr. Leonard McCoy in the respect of speaking her mind and damn the consequences. According to Dr. Novana's service record, she had been reprimanded only once for it but her previous superiors found it refreshing for an officer to be so brutally blunt and outspoken. Alona agreed, it is refreshing. She nodded at Novana, keeping her smile.

"I am sure you can correct those discrepencies then?" Alona asked. Novana smirked, she seemed to understand that Alona didn't mind her being able to speak her mind openly. "Yes ma'am, I think we can have them corrected before we depart the construction slip" Novana said.

"Construction Dock, Doctor" Drake said.

"Whatever" Novana said.

"Excellent, please see to it" Alona said.

Alona looked at last to to the human sitting at the opposite end of the table from her, her uniform was crisp, even for a M.A.C.O. Officer. Just from her looks, Alona could tell she was competent and held herself to high standards to which she probably held her own people to those same standards. A Brunette, cut to neck length or at least thats what Alona assumed, was tied into a bun so tight, it looked like it hurt, piercing hazel eyes and a sharp chin. To Alona, Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Reed appeared quite plain, but, she thought thats how Reed wanted to appear to people, plain and unassuming until you got a phaser blast to the back or a vibro-knife in the throat.

She knew that M.A.C.O. personnel are not to be trifled with and were quite good at their job. They had fought in every war the Federation had gotten into, from the early Klingon Wars to the Dominion War. M.A.C.O. were generally never really assigned to a ship because Starfleet felt that security personnel on board a starship should be adequate enough to handle repelling boarders to away missions that required tactical handling. Whenever M.A.C.O. were assigned to a starship, it was considered pretty serious to have such intensely, specially trained combat personnel on board. She understood that fact and had planned to use the infantry accordingly.

Reed looked around the table once and in a clear voice introduced herself. Reed had a commanding voice and a commanding presence, the same as Alona. She hoped she wouldn't have to butt heads with her.

"Colonel, how many M.A.C.O. have been assigned to the ship?" Alona asked.

"We're a company short of a full battalion, but thats because of space and on board housing constraints, so three companies, which comes to 225 troops" Reed answered. Alona nodded, "Any of them have specific skill sets or certain gear requirements such as armored vehicles or perhaps special forces?" she asked.

Reed shook her head, "No ma'am, we don't have any armored vehicles nor any special operations personnel on board, however, of the three companies we have, two are plain infantry, the other one is a mixed specialties broken into platoon sized groups: EOD, Powered Armor Commandoes, and Electronic Warfare Specialists"

"Powered Armor Commandoes? I never heard of those before when I've dealt with M.A.C.O." Alona said.

"The Powered Armor Commandoes are a relatively new type of trained personnel within M.A.C.O. They aren't special forces, but they do have advanced combat and tactics training and M.A.C.O. uses them for surgical strikes, search and rescue, seek and destroy, and reconnaissance missions. The powered armor has many functions but mainly acts as armor, an exo-skeleton, and an enviromental suit all in one. It has a personal shield system and a pulse phaser shoulder cannon, but like all good things, theres some problems with it"

"Thank you Colonel, you will have to explain these drawbacks to me later, now before we depart this this meeting, I would like a status update from all departments" Alona said.

The Endeavour had been at Utopia Planetia for a year and eight months, overhaul of her systems from when she was recalled took the longest time to complete, taking a full year. The overhaul was required, due to that Sovereigns are an aging class. After the first Sovereign-class ship departed the construction docks for the first time in 2367, it was understandable to have her overhauled.

In 2384, Starfleet Advanced Starship Design Bureau uprated the class into its third and final generation. At the same time, Starfleet stated that construction of the ships would end in 2390, the Endeavour was the one of the last three Sovereigns built. While the class is no longer being constructed, most of them are still in service being operated throughout the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Quadrants. The ships were also still receiving LCARS updates, general systems updates, refits, and maintenance.

As a third generation Sovereign, the Endeavour had four more decks than her predecessors, was 10 meters longer, 20 meters wider, 12 meters taller, and had a larger crew compliment of 885. First and second generation Sovereigns normal crew compliments were 700. The extra decks were for expanded scientific and exploratory studies, extra housing, more modular science labs, and expanded torpedo magazines.

_Captains Personal Log, Stardate 67856.4. Today we get underway. The last of the crew are aboard and the last of the non-replictable supplies have been stowed. I am not sure about this experimental test of the transwarp conduit that we're to transit through, namely because I worked on some of the experiments. I remember adamantly rejecting the idea to test out the system until all the calculations were correct, regardless, I guess it is a good idea to have a Warp Theorist commanding the ship thats going through the test conduit. What has been keeping me up at night is the location of the conduit, what the fuck was going through Starfleet Commands' head when they decided to hide some of our stuff inside Romulan space?_

Alona looked around the bridge, then sat in the Captains Chair. Harry sat next to her smiling, obviously he was excited and ready to get underway as well. Alona looked at one of the arm rests of her chair and gently patted it, "May we have the hindsight to know where we've been, the foresight to know where we're going and the insight to know when we're gone too far" she murmured. It was a personal tradition of hers that she would say as the ship was leaving dock, however, the order she was about to give was probably going to be remembered for a while.

"All stations are reporting online, manned, and ready for departure. Captain, the ship is ready to get underway" Kim said, not looking away from his console.

"Very well, Mr. Kolaas, detach all imbelicals, close and seal airlock 4, and release the docking clamps" Alona said.

"Aye, ma'am" After a moment of entering commands in, a loud clunk was heard. The docking clamps had been released.

"Captain, Utopia Planetia traffic has cleared us for departure, we'll be using exit corridor 7" Radis said.

"Excellent, ahead one-quarter impulse Mr. Kolaas" Alona said, silence followed her command. Kolaas looked up from his console and back at Alona. Kim looked at Alona, grinned and looked back down at his console, T'saal glanced at Kolaas for a moment, and Radis smiled into his console.

"Is there a problem Ensign?" Alona said after the brief moment of silence.

"Captain, regul-" Kolaas began.

"I know the regulations Ensign, now, ahead one-quarter impulse" Alona said, looking directly into Kolaas's eyes.

"Aye, Captain" he said and turned back to the conn, "Engines are ahead one-quarter impulse" obviously he was uncomfortable carrying out her order.

"What's wrong Mr. Kolaas? Enjoy this moment, you are part of history. As soon as the nacelles are clear of the dock, accelerate to three-quarters impulse and take us into the corridor" Alona said.

"How is manuvering the ship at these speeds a part of history?" Kolaas asked.

Alona giggled, "That's because no one has taken a ship out at those speeds since James Kirks' time"

"I see, we're in the corridor ma'am" Kolaas said, he was concentrating on piloting the ship.

"Good, do you think you can maneuver the ship around the traffic ahead of us at these speeds?" Alona asked, clearly she was questioning Kolaas's capabilities, well at least that's how he would view it.

"Captain, this is a simple task, of course I can"

'Prideful fuck' she thought, "Good then, get us through this traffic, I want to be in the cleared warp zone ASAP"

"Aye, Captain"

Amazingly enough, Kolaas more than confidently piloted the ship past two Galaxy-class ships, several Akiras, a few Nebulas, and another Sovereign. Some of the ships were maneuvering out of the way but to Alona, it seemed like the Endeavour practically danced past all of them. 'This ship, theres something about it, I can't seem to put my thumb on it, theres also more to that Klingon's piloting skills than I first realized 'she thought. All the while Utopia Planetia was ordering them to slow down immediately. "Send them an acknowledgement Mr. Radis, if they keep asking or telling us to slow down, keep acknowledging them" Alona said with a grin. They entered the Cleared Warp Zone less than five minutes from when they departed the slip, a new record according to Alona.

"Thank you Mr. Kolaas for that wonderful helmsmanship, plot us a course to the Neptune, warp five" she said, then after a moment, "Engage"


	3. Chapter 3, To the Azure Nebula!

Endeavour jumped into warp fast. To Alona, it seemed like the ship had a particular vibe to it, which may be the inertial dampeners but, it seemed like the ship was happy to be at warp. Traveling at the ships normal cruising speed of Warp 8, the ship seemed the most active.'Think happy thoughts' she thought.

"I want to know when we're around 20 light years from our side of the Romulan Neutral Zone, have us come to all stop at around 15 light years please" Alona said, then turned to Kim, "My ready room please" stood and walked into her ready room. Kim followed.

As the door shut, she said nothing, turned to her replicator "Cappcucino, hot, lightly sweetened, light cream" it materialized and she looked over her shoulder at Kim, "Want anything?" she asked. "No, thank you" he said, he was sure she was going to talk to him about Kolaas questioning her orders. Although, he was justified in questioning her order, but he should have done it in private, not in front of the senior staff and the junior officers that were on the bridge at the time.

Alona grasped her cup and turned to Kim. "We'll need to figure out a way through the sensor buoy net that the Romulans have set up along the Neutral Zone border. Its a tight net, but only has a maximum scanning range of ten light years, so to supplement that deficiency they stacked a bunch of them out there. Any thoughts?" she asked.

"Well, we could try out that new Electronic Warfare Suite that was installed. Radis had been talking about it for a while now. We could hack into the buoys and have them shut down" Kim said.

"No, I don't think shutting them down would work, they would notice once the buoys would start going offline and probably send some ships to find out why. Then again, it may take them a little while to respond"

"Thats even if they respond at all, remember, they are not working with all their resources. For all we know they may not be even monitoring the system"

Alona snorted as she sat down behind her desk, "You better believe that they are monitoring it. All intelligence we have received about their war with the Klingons indicate that they are using it as an early warning system for incursions. If those bouys detect us, especially with our IFF offline, they may decide we are Klingons attacking through Federation space"

IFF or Identification Friend Foe, have been installed on Federation starships since the Dominion War. They are data senders, typically one of the first things another starship will detect when it scans a Federation vessel is whether its a friend or foe, then the IFF would broadcast to the scanning ship what class the scanned ship is, unclassified mission parameters and duties, alert status (basically warning that the ship is at battle stations and all civilian vessels should vacate the area) and so on.

There were instances during the Dominion War where Federation special operatives had commandeered Jem'Hadar vessels but were fired upon by Federation forces. As such, Federation captains and senior staff were taught specific IFF codes for commandeered vessels as well as an IFF system that was installed on all Federation vessels. In the event of a Federation starship that was taken over by the enemy, any of the senior staff would be able to alter the IFF code to broadcast differently to indicate the ship was taken by hostiles and the crew was being held. There were other numerous different condition IFF codes for a ship to broadcast. When an IFF is disabled, the ship will not indicate any information about itself similar to not answering a hail.

"Why do we need our IFF offline?"

"We need to look like a rogue Federation starship, so if we come under attack, we can defend ourselves without causing a 'diplomatic incident' and causing us to go to war against the Romulans"

Kim raised an eyebrow. Alona waved her hand, "Yes, I agree, it sounds like a shitty idea to me too but its our orders"

Alona tapped her combadge "Benson to Drake, please come to my ready room"

"Aye, Captain" she replied.

Kim nodded, perhaps Drake may have an idea with the buoys. He remembered when he was serving on Voyager, how Janeway would rely on him for his technical expertise in all manners, well technical. Drake reminded him of how he was in that regard and considering shes an android, that might actually help. He shook his head slightly. Being a piece of tech, doesn't mean you're good at it, c'mon Harry, you're the damn XO, come up with something, use that technical expertise for something. Its just like putting certain systems in heuristic mode for...wait.

The door chimed. "Come" Alona said.

As Drake entered, Kim looked up, "Wait, what if we have the bouys do a level two or three diagnostic on themselves. They have to do it sometime, so we just need to monitor how often, then, just have it cascade and create a corridor we could go through at maximum warp til we're on the other side" he said.

Alona looked at Kim, over at Drake, then back at Kim. She was running it through her head, it sounded like a good plan but she wanted to make sure. "Morgana, for a sensor buoy net, would the plan that Harry just proposed work?" she asked.

Drake glanced at Kim, then back to the Alona "Yes ma'am, however, timing them may be difficult as well as the process may be time consuming. Also ma'am, there is the deadline to consider, which we have four days, 17 hours, and 33 minutes remaining" she said.

"I don't care about how difficult it is, I want to know if its possible we can do it and still get there in time" Alona said.

"We can ma'am, but again, the timing needs to be flawless in order for us to be able to get through undetected" Drake said.

"Good, then I want you and the XO to start working on this immediately"

"This make take some time Captain" Kim said.

"You have three days" Alona said, grinning behind her cup.

Several hours later, Drake chimed the Captain's Ready Room, after a moment she heard a clear "Enter" and she entered. Alona was sitting in a lounge chair reading a PADD, it was titled: U.S.S. Endeavour-C schematics updated Stardate 67444. "Captain, Commander Kim and I have completed our simulations on setting the buoys on diagnostic mode, our success ratio has been aroun 98%. However, during our flight through the corridor I do recommend that the XO takes the conn, he is prepared for the contingencies should something fail" Drake said.

"Excellent, and in only 18 hours. Good, we will start around 0300 hours tomorrow morning, so I would suggest getting some sleep or whatever you do for that time period" Alona said.

"Aye, ma'am" Drake said

"Dismissed"

The overhaul and retrofit to the Endeavour was more extensive than Alona first realized. For example, the amount of power flow through some certain key EPS conduit was very close to dangerous. It wasn't if they couldn't handle it, but more along the lines of little room for error. Also, she figured if they got into a good or extended firefight with someone, some of those same conduits are more susceptible to exploding due to the rapid movement of power from one system to the next, such as the engines to the shields.

Aside from that, the power output from the new High Efficiency Advanced Propulsion Warp Core or HEAPWC (pronounced Heap-Wick) was absolutely astounding. In fact, it produced three times more power than standard war cores. Additionally, the HEAPWC pushed Endeavour past the warp 9.9 barrier that most Sovereigns contend with. Warp 9.9 is the maximum speed Sovereign-class starships are confined to due to intense power requirements to operate the ship under normal circumstances. The HEAPWC allows her to "sprint-warp" or "dash-warp" at an impressive Warp 9.995 for an impressive 24 hours making the Endeavour one of the fastest ships in the fleet.

Even with the extra power produced from the HEAPWC, Endeavour still suffered from power problems typically found in Sovereigns. Only, not in so much as not having enough power but now having too much available power. Endeavours EPS conduits are handling the load well enough but from what Alona was reading it seems like she might have to have Bari design EPS relays and conduits that can handle the load better or see if there was a way that perhaps bleed off some of the excess power into some other systems.

Alona shrugged to herself. She'll find a way. "Computer, what is the time?" Alona asked without looking away from her PADD. "Time on deck is 2237 hours" the computer replied. Alona stood, stretched, cracking her back and elbows. She groaned, that felt good. Leaving her ready room, she stepped on the bridge and looked around. "Hows everything Commander?" she asked Radis. He was Officer of the Watch, "Good Captain, we're still en route to the Romulan border, we should be there in around 4 and a half hours" he said.

Alona nodded, "Good, if you need anything I will be in my quarters" then entered the Turbolift. When she finally laid down 30 minutes later she was asleep by the time her head hit the pillow.

_Captains Log, Stardate 67868.2. We have finally gotten within 20 light years of the Romulan Neutral Zone Border. Unfortunately, there is a sensor buoy net set up that appears to be more sophisticated than we realized, however, I believe the XO and Ops have come up with a plan on how to bypass the network. Utilizing our new EWS, we will hack into the buoys, set them into a diagnostic mode, creating a corridor for us to transit through and at the same time make it look like the buoys are performing their routine yet random diagnostic checks._

"...and that will be how we transit through without being detected" Drake finished. The bridge crew was in the observation conference room, all were thinking about the plan that Kim and her had come up with.

Alona quickly looked around the table, "Any suggestions, thoughts or maybe a problem you see that they didn't?" she asked.

Silence for a moment. "The hardest part would be making this look like their routine checks. From the data we have gathered so far, the checks are at random intervals, with random buoys, so Commander, it may be more of a zig-zag kind of trip than a straight line through a corridor" Radis said. He was the expert on the ships Electronic Warfare Systems after all Electronic Warfare was what he trained for.

In Starfleet, Electronic Warfare was a scoffed at profession, due to the sophistication of modern computers, advanced command and control functions and the capabilities of modern AIs. It was thought that without proper command codes one cannot access any Starfleet computer. However, that thought process changed with the return of Voyager and what happened with her computer systems when she went back in time to the late 1990s. Another example of the fallacy of that belief was how easily Enterprise-E's systems were taken over by the Borg when she was sent back in time.

Defense of the ships computer became a priority, protection of critical data was imperative, so the initial thought was perhaps Starfleets computer systems cannot handle temporal shifts or temporal adjustments. After some secret tests by Section 31, they indicated that Bio-Neural Computer Cores and Isolinear Computer Cores are not effected by temporal shifts, fluxes, anomalies or adjustments, so Electronic Warfare was brought back for extensive testing and study. Radis was one of those particular Electronic Warfare testers, with a doctorate in Cryptography and a master of Electronic Warfare, Radis proved to both Starfleet Command the General Electric Company that Bio-Neural computer systems could not only be hacked but also it could be done from just about anywhere and no one could stop him.

Radis proved this fact by calling a conference at the oddest of places. While sitting at an enviromental control console in Luna Station, surrounded by several admirals and techs from GE, Radis accessed the U.S.S. James T. Kirk, a Yamato-class Starship with an advanced computer core was at Deep Space Nine, her crew getting ready to depart for a patrol along the Cardassian Border. Without using any command codes or having any knowledge of any of the crew, Radis accessed the ships computer, bypassed the ships AI, and changed the command codes for every officer on board then locked out all command functions on the bridge then shut every system down on board. He managed to do this within a 20 minute period, but after every system being offline for five minutes, the computer automatically brought the Kirk back online. Radis then restored all command controls and functions to their previous state then left the gawking admirals and GE techs where they stood to find a good martini.

It took the Deep Space Nine station staff four months to track down what happened to the ship. They managed to follow the access trail back, not to the Moon, but to Earth. The station staff claimed to have found that a computer terminal in Norwich, England was used to access the Kirk. Starfleet then began to start looking at Electronic Warfare as ways to combat threats or even as peaceful ways to prevent loss of life. Starfleet found that it was easier to lock out guidance systems for weapons or to cause a ship to suddenly lose power over fighting.

After a couple years of use, Electronic Warfare had become an excellent form of defense, especially for civilian vessels as such, many Federation civilian vessels had begun to equip their ships with their own EWS. But, like all new and wonderful things, there was a gross misuse of EWS. The Federation freighter Tuscany, equipped with an EWS suite, was en route to Bajor when it came under fire by an Orion syndicate slave ship. Rather than returning fire, the freighter brought up its shields and started its EWS suite. They accessed the Orion ships computer core, then the Tuscany promptly shut down the Orion ships matter/anti-matter containment field, causing a warp core breach destroying the ship.

When the Tuscany had arrived at Bajor, they reported in about the encounter with the Orion Syndicate vessel. Starfleet was appalled at the actions of the Tuscany crew, had the crew arrested, her crew was tried, and the freighter and its cargo was impounded. Known as the Tuscany Incident, Starfleet had attack oriented EWS removed from all civilian vessels, but they did authorize civilian vessels to have Electronic Countermeasures. Most EWS are now found only on Starfleet capital ships, while the rest of the fleet just normally have ECS.

Since the Tuscany Incident, Starfleet began to create intensive ECS, aggressive defensive firewalls and command looping. Some countermeasure systems are aggressive enough to piggyback the connection back to the attacking source then implant viruses, fill critical systems with useless data, clog sensors with ghosts and false readings, initiate emergency warp core ejections and so on. Specific command overrides were eventually built into the hardware of the computers and other key ship systems/components rather than the software as an additional layer of protection. Specific electronic countermeasure computers were also developed to combat EWS due to the computers faster reaction times.

"Hard, but not impossible?" Alona asked.

"Yes, ma'am, given that the buoys enter diagnostics mode are random" Radis paused as he brought up a display with the sensor buoy network, "We would have to follow an erratic route through the buoy network such as this one" he entered a command in and it showed the route, twice the route involved the ship having to double back through some of the network. "Or something like this" Another route appeared, similar to the first, but with larger 'S' turns and only doubled back once.

Radis ended up showing them six different routes before everyone understood the idea, "Notice that the various require us to double back, make multiple hard turns, slide through narrow gaps and so on. It will be hard but we can do it, Captain, if I may, I can coordinate with Lieutenant Drake and the XO to get us through, after all, they are using my Electronic Warfare system. Its also good that the network is ten light years deep, anything more might have been extremely hard to do"

Alona nodded, "Is the XO still going to be manning the helm?"

"No, ma'am, I do recommend we have Kolaas man the helm, he will be able to make the course changes, adjust heading and such while still at Warp, especially if we're sprinting through, much more fluidly than the XO" Radis said, then looked over at Kim "No, offense sir" he added.

Kim smiled, "None taken, the Captain and I trust in your judgement. If the helm requires a steadier hand than mine then by all means, have them man it. What are you going to be doing by the way Mr. Radis?" Kim asked.

"I will be manning the EWS sir, Ms. Drake will be assisting me with course plotting and speed adjustments. Captain, we will have to make quick and sudden course changes, is it possible that Ms. Drake and I take the conn for the duration of the crossing?" Radis replied.

"Of course" Alona replied, then added, "I want you to find a good time to begin the crossing, we'll go from there. In the mean time, I'll get the ship into position for the crossing. I want you three to work out the details and talk to Kolaas, hes currently on duty, that's why he isn't here..Anything else?" Silence.

"Dismissed" Alona said.

_Captains Log, supplemental. My senior officers have come up with a plan to successfully penetrate the sensor buoy network without being detected. Hopefully, this plan goes well and we do not get detected. If we do, I do have a Plan B. Since Mr. Radis stepped in to help out the XO and Ms. Drake, I really do think he may be a genius in the fields of work he is in. I don't think Starfleet Intelligence and Starfleet Tactical would be the same if died or worked another field of study. I am sure grateful to have him aboard._

Alona always operated on a philosophy that no plan will ever work perfectly and to have backup plans to supplement the primary one. She knew that worse case scenario involved her shooting her way through the buoy network and then running like a bat outta hell for the Azure Nebula, however, she didn't think it would come to that though. Perhaps she would be able to persuade the Romulans that her and her crew were defecting to the Romulans, a quick bit of cosmetic adjustments or even holographic projections to make her and some of her crew to have Romulan backgrounds of some kind. The only thing is she would have to keep her shields up in order to prevent anyone beaming aboard and finding out that their still Starfleet.

Alona shook her head, no time to think about that right now. She had to make sure her ship got through this net undetected and that's what she planned to do. The plan to get Endeavour through as quickly as possible, lingering in the middle of a possibly hostile sensor buoy network was not recommended. Alona had the bridge watch crew move the ship to around one million kilometers outside the furthest buoys sensor range and to remain there until the order was given to cross.

"Anything on sensors?" Kim asked.

"Nothing sir, just the buoys are the only thing we're picking up and beyond the network sir is nothing. No cloaked ships, no spatial objects, nothing. Just empty space" T'saal said.

"Very well" Kim said.

A brief moment of silence followed, beeps and chirps from consoles and quiet murmurs from the Radis and Drake were the only thing heard. It was oddly relaxing. Alona was no empath but the bridge did have a calm and collected feeling about it with a sense of anticipation.

After a moment, Alona realized she was holding her breath and exhaled, "Mr. Radis, are you and Ms. Drake ready?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am, permission to take the conn" Drake said.

"Granted. Mr. Kolaas, please listen and execute their orders to the letter at the moment they tell you. I can't emphasize how important it is for us to get through this network undetected" Alona said.

"Aye, Captain" Kolaas said.

Radis cleared his throat, "Alright, Mr. Kolaas, I am updating telemetry to you, head in at this point, full impulse if you please"

"Ahead Full Impulse, Aye" Kolaas said, he was looking at his console following the instructions given.

"May fortune favor the foolish" Alona said quietly and settled back in her chair. The commands to jump to warp, drop out of warp, change course, alter heading, come right or left came quickly after that. Kolaas kept up with their orders amazingly. Alona wasn't sure if he could. But, as Alona thought, a plan never goes perfectly.

With two buoys remaining to slip past, Drake miscalculated a warp jump by a second or two and Endeavour entered the detection envelope of Sensor Buoy 209834. As Endeavour was detected, the buoy pinged the ship, verifying that it was a starship and not a spatial object. Fortunately, Endeavours IFF was offline and did not respond to the sensor ping. The buoys computer thought this over for a moment, then scanned for a warp trail behind the object that was just recently detected. The object did leave behind a warp trail, scans indicated it was ion based, which left 389 different species. Scanning the trail, the buoy determined the plasma decay rate and limited the optional culprits of either the Federation or Romulan vessel.

The buoy knew though that if it was a Romulan vessel, the ship would have responded to the Sensor ping. The buoy decided to ping the hull again, and scan the warp trail one more time to verify what it was detecting. Of course, whatever that left a warp trail and did not respond to a sensor ping left the buoy no choice. It understood that there was a possible vessel within it sensor range, therefore, its only action is to notify the operator of the detection. As the the buoy was sending the subspace signal, it suddenly decided that now would be a good time to enter into a level 2 diagnostic mode, cutting off half of the signal it had sent, all within a 1.0312 second period.

"Son of a bitch, it got a partial signal out" Radis said.

"Get that last buoy down now" Alona said.

"Aye, Captain, its down"

"Mr. Kolaas, get us to the Azure Nebula, maximum warp" Alona commanded.

"Aye, ma'am" Kolaas replied, as the ship was already jumping to warp.

"Lets hope that the signal is garbled when the get it, we should still have some time. T'saal, keep an eye out for ANY other vessel be it cloaked or not, I really don't want to make any friends right now" Alona said.

"At our current speed, whats our ETA to the Azure Nebula?" Kim asked.

"1 hour, 50 minutes, sir" Kolaas replied.

"Conn, two Voldare-class warbirds on an intercept course, ETA 40 minutes at their current speed" T'saal reported.

40 minutes? We could get away with that long of time between us and them. They can't be on an intercept course.

"T'saal, verify the Valdore's are on an intercept course" Alona said.

"Standby" he replied.

"Verified, they are on an intercept course Captain, they are accelerating rapidly, looks like they are trying to match our speed. ETA updated 12 minutes" he said.

Kim looked at Alona, she glanced at him and nodded. Kim sighed, he had hoped he would not have to do this so early in the mission.

"Red Alert, General Quarters. Computer, set Material Condition Zulu throughout the ship"

"Acknowledged" the computer replied.


	4. Chapter 4, Into the Azure Nebula

The primary bridge lighting turned to blue as the Red Alert klaxon sounded. Alona glanced around the bridge, both Viir-Keim and Kolaas were smiling, T'saal looked his normal calm and collected Vulcan self, Kim was focused entering commands on his console, Drake was the same. Console chirps and beeps were the only sound on the bridge, the tension was ratcheting up.

"ETA to the nebula?" Alona asked.  
"At current speed, 1 hour 40 minutes Captain" Drake responded.

Silence again. Alona shook her head, disappointed. We don't have a choice but to fight. Perhaps we can disable their communications systems first then disable the ships, get to the nebula and no one be the wiser. Fuck it, just completely disable those ships and get the hell outta here. Alona knew there were times where it is easier to incapacitate a sentry and then continue the infiltration. Alright.

"Mr. Kolaas, all stop, assume an offensive posture. Viir-Keim, disabling fire only, target their communications first. Mr. Radis, see if you can disable their shields with the EWS please. Tell the CAG to get his birds ready for launch, ship killer load-outs just in case" Alona said, pausing a moment between each command. Each command was responded with an Aye.

"All stations report they are at battle stations" Kim said.

"Very well" Alona said.

"40 seconds" T'saal said aloud.

"We're being hailed" Radis said.

"On screen" Alona said and stood, taking a couple steps forward.

A Romulan appeared, Alona couldn't tell what rank he was. Alona and the Romulan stared at one another for a moment before the Romulan spoke.  
"Federation vessel, you are ordered to stand down and prepare to be boarded. If you do not comply within one minute, we will open fire and destroy your vessel" the Romulan said and then cut the transmission.

Alona shrugged, "Ok then" she said and took her seat.

"Mr. Radis, how are their shields?" Alona asked.

"They will be offline right about...now!"

"Viir-Keim, open fire"

Endeavour was barely moving. The Voldare-class warbirds had already encircled her, weapons trained on her vitals: nacelles, bridge, deflectors, weapons, and life support. Both Romulan captains were quite aware of the combat capabilities of a Sovereign-class. The Voldares had scanned her extensively, their tactical read-outs indicated she was heavily modified, an additional shield system, enhanced phasers, different configuration of torpedo launchers, larger than normal sensor pallets, _a housed fighter squadron_, her communications relays were also oversized for a Sovereign, at least in their experience.

Additionally, the ship was in offensive posture, not in a defensive posture like other Starfleet vessels would have assumed. Pirates? Most likely not. Possibly Marquis, but they would have no reason to be in Romulan space and a Sovereign would never fall into their hands. The ship confused the Voldare captains, however, what was really bothering them is how she got through their sensor buoy network without being detected immediately. Luckily, they were nearby, performing a joint patrol and adjusting buoys as needed. The lead Romulan captain told the human captain to stand down and prepare to be boarded, then ended the transmission before they could respond. The human was female, interestingly attractive, but something was different about her, they just couldn't figure out what.

From the view-screen image of the Sovereign bridge, they saw that they're at battle stations and scans show their weapons were powered up, shields active, so they were ready for a fight. Captain Setnek hoped for a fight, he hadn't seen combat for a while and taking down a Federation Sovereign-class would add a nice boost to his reputation. 30 seconds left.

"Prepare to fi-"  
"Commander, our shields just went offline! I can't bring them back up" a tactical officer said.  
"What?"

All hell broke loose.

Both of the Voldares shields dropped simultaneously then Viir-Keim opened fire. All of Endeavours newly installed dorsal Type-14 phasers lashed out at both Voldares and her port and starboard photon tubes lobbed three torpedoes within a second of the phaser fire. After the first burst, Endeavour began moving at half impulse, circling starboard. Endeavour's phasers continued to fire, each shot, a direct hit on the target systems. The Voldares were disabled before they had realized what had happened.

The first phaser barrage had landed direct hits on the Voldares communications, weapons and impulse engines. The torpedos finished off weapons and disabled their warp drives. The second phaser barrage was to their independent backup systems. Neither Voldares fired a single return torpedo or disruptor blast and Captain Setnek realized that neither Voldare had a chance. He knew something was different about this ship, he was scared, not from being fired upon but how their systems were penetrated, how they were easily manipulated into shutting down and locking out from their operators. No Romulan ship had ever been attacked in such a manner before. Later, logs indicated that the Endeavour had accessed their computer systems and disabled both Voldare shield systems then opened fire.

Initially, the Romulans felt this was a cowardly attack, but, after some months of study, they understood the sense in it and how effective it is to use an enemy vessels systems against its own crew. The Romulans then began to develop countermeasures against such attacks to ship systems, hardening their systems from outside attacks. They also began their own program of accessing enemy systems, from which they figured out how they could do it while a ship is cloaked. As such, they began field testing their techniques against the Klingons and as such, the Klingons began their Electronic Warfare studies.

The Voldares detected Endeavours sensors pinging off their hulls, then without a single transmission or additional weapons fire, the ship jumped to warp, leaving the two disabled ships behind. The last scans of the ship indicated she accelerated past Warp 9, on a projected course to the Azure Nebula. Neither captain had ever seen such a swift and ferocious attack come from a Sovereign-class starship before, they would never see another such attack from a Sovereign again.

Endeavour cruised along at Warp 9.9, not her top speed but damn near it. She stood down from Red Alert and General Quarters, the ships routine operations coming back into mind calming the crew down. Viir-Keim was throughly happy, his precise fire was instrumental in the ships escape but Alona thought it was because he got to shoot at someone. Exhaling, she looked around the bridge once more, everyone seemed to have calmed down and Alpha Watch had begun. Watch-standers had begun to arrive to relieve the senior Bridge Crew when Alona stood.

"I'm going to go have breakfast, please let me know when we enter the Azure Nebula" she said and entered the Turbolift.

_Captains Log, Stardate 67869. We have arrived at the designated rendezvous point, awaiting the U.S.S. Kelvin, a Luna-class starship. I was amazed at the fact that there is a Y-class planet circling an O-type star near the center of this Nebula. While, there is nothing of use on the planet, there is a Transwarp Gateway at the L5 Lagrange point of the planet. Everyone aboard is tense, unsure of how our trip through the Transwarp Conduit is going to be. I find myself uneasy as well, what I do feel though is, no matter how far flung we may end up, I will get this ship home and its crew back to Earth._

The Luna class starship is one of the more famous class of starships, boasting the U.S.S. Titan as the flagship of the class, the ship was designed as a testbed for new technologies, a long-range explorer and long range science ship. With a modular "rollpod" system, similar to the Nebula-class starship, the ship was not designed primarily for combat, unlike the Defiant-class or the Akira-class starships. The Luna purpose was to be a strong multi-mission platform for Starfleet. Able to operate without support for long periods of time, the Luna-class made exceptional discoveries while performing deep space exploration of the Gamma Quadrant. Proving to be an excellent starship, the ship also made strides in defensive design of many starships, especially science and support vessels weapon and defensive systems.

With an advanced modular rollpod, typically the advanced sensor pod is used, the Luna-class boasts one of the most advanced sensor systems ever designed and near cutting-edge propulsion systems. Uprated only once since its production started in 2377, the Luna-class has been an excellent starship to both command and work on. Since being able to conduct operations for long periods of time without support, the vessel had families of the crew aboard, similar to a Galaxy-class starship. Most of the Luna-class ships in the fleet operated on three to five year exploratory missions, so Starfleet allowed families for morale support of the crew members.

The Luna-class starships crew compliment is much smaller than a Galaxy or Sovereign-class starship, with only 350 personnel, it is manned by the most diversified crews in the history of Starfleet. With humans compromising only 15% of a typical crew compliment, Starfleet found that when the species of the crew was more diversified than on other ships it was easier for new species and cultures to speak to the Federation than a more predominately human crewed vessel. Racist? Perhaps, but it was a decision that was made based on statistics and observed fact.

The Kelvin was detected surveying the O-type star and was hailed. It seemed that Captain Taylor was amiable, but a little leery about Endeavours mission because Kelvins sensors had detected the heavy modifications done to Endeavour for the trip. While retrofits were 'Very interesting' to Captain Taylor, he still remained uneasy about Endeavours intentions. At the same time, most of the senior staff of the Endeavour were uneasy about the Kelvin, she must have gone through the same gauntlet of sensor buoys to get to where she is now, why did her captain and crew seem so nonchalant about being here. Both crews tensions were beginning to rise when, to alleviate the situation, both Captains invited both crews over to each ship for tours, recreation, and lunch. Senior Staff between both ships rubbed elbows for dinner. Tensions diffused and friendly rivalries took its place, the Endeavour and Kelvin crews enjoyed each others company like this for three days after their meeting.

It turned out that Kelvin had been allowed through the sensor buoy network under the guise of being a science vessel on an authorized exploration of the Azure Nebula. The Azure Nebula was barely explored by the Romulans, so, the Romulan government authorized the Federation and the Kelvin entry for a three month exploration and study of the Nebula.

"It's time" Alona said, Captain Nathaniel Taylor nodded in agreement. They were both sitting in Alona's lounge chairs in her ready room, sipping on some iced tea.

"It's been fun, almost like a short three days of leave. I am sure there will be points on your trip back where you will find time to take a break but, I think this will be the last time your crew will see another Federation ship for a while. I hope your crew and mine had a good time, some good memories" Taylor said.

"I am sure they did, and Nate, thank you. Its been a real pleasure working with you too" Alona said smiling. Taylor grinned back.

"Perhaps, when you get back they will promote you to Admiral like Admiral Janeway, then stick you behind a desk at HQ"

Alona snorted, "Fuck that, that's one thing I will never do again. Being Chief-of-Staff under Admiral Janeway wasn't bad, it was sitting at that desk day in and day out. It got tedious in a really bad way. Honestly, I am glad she offered the mission to me"

"You still haven't told me what you are going to be doing"

Alona looked at him for a moment. It was true, she hadn't told him about her mission at all, just reciting the classic "sorry, its classified" rhetoric. She was about to recite it again, however, when she thought about it, what was Starfleet going to do to her? She may end up in another galaxy for all she knows, let alone being almost 13,000 light years out into the Delta Quadrant, she'll be pretty much untouchable for a few years to never. Taylor had told her he had received oddly vague orders to explore the Azure Nebula for three months and while exploring the Nebula meet up with another Federation starship, make sure it gets through the transwarp gateway safely, then destroy the gateway after the ships departure. No debris is to be found. She smiled at Taylor.

"Alright, Alright, but promise you won't tell anyone. Its supposed to be classified" she said. Taylor nodded.

"First, my entire crew are all volunteers, since, you know, transwarp technology is still experimental and, well, theres a possibility it could send us anywhere. If the destination calculations are off by as much as a decimal point it could send us further than our target location, if its off by a lot, we could end up in another galaxy for all we know. The Federation doesn't know much about transwarp gateways and conduits or how to use them correctly, considering all that we have learned is from the Borg we have liberated.

"So, with that being said, our target location is a detected nebula approximately 12,950 light years into the Delta Quadrant, from there we're to make our way back to Earth, all the while surveying every planetary system, contacting all species we can legally contact, and chart locations for transwarp landings and Starbases" Alona finished. Taylor raised an eyebrow.

"What makes that a classified mission?" he asked.

"Well, its because we're using experimental transwarp technology, which is still classified, and the fact that we may end up anywhere"

"What are you going to do if you end up in another galaxy or further out than you expected?"

"If we end up in another galaxy, I am ascertain how long it would take to return to the Milky Way, if its determined that we would take longer than my lifetime to return to the Milky Way, we're to find the nearest uninhabited system with an uninhabited M-class planet, dismantle Endeavour and settle the planet" Alona replied.

Taylor blinked at her. Is she fucking serious? Give up, just like that, settle a planet and die. Granted, Endeavour has a large enough genetic pool to sustain a small population on a planet but still. Plain give up on getting home even if it takes 150 years to get home? No way she could just simply settle a planet like that, she seems too much of a fighter for her to do that.

"Would you do that? Just settle a planet if it takes 150 years to get back to Earth?" Taylor asked.

Alona smirked at him, "My lifetime is a little longer than 150 years" she said, then stood.

"We need to get underway, thanks again Captain" Alona said, Taylor slowly stood eyeing her, then nodded.

"Good luck Alona" he said shaking her hand, then tapped his combadge,

"Kelvin, one to beam over" a moment later, he was gone. Alona tapped her own combadge.

"Benson to Kim, please recall everyone that's on the Kelvin. We get underway in 2 hours" she said.


	5. Chapter 5, Welcome to the Delta Quadrant

The Endeavour sat 1,350 kilometers to the port side of the Transwarp Gateway. Endeavours job was to funnel the necessary power to the conduit while the Kelvin fed the proper data entry into the conduits main computer, activating the conduit. After the gateway would be activated and a stable corridor would form, Endeavour would transit through and Kelvin would then open fire on the gateway destroying it and any evidence that would indicate that there was a Federation presence there.

Feeding power to the gateway was the easy job, Kelvins AC-22 Bio-Neural Super-Series Computer Core was a more advanced computer core than Endeavours. While modern Bio-Neural super computers are AC-23s and AC-24s, Kelvin had a greater computing capability when compared to Endeavours AC-20 computer core. Even though Endeavour utilizes an older computer core, she is not the only remaining starship that uses an AC-20 computer core. In fact, AC-19s and AC-20s are found on most starships with only the newest classes utilizing AC-23 and AC-24 computer cores. The main differences between each generation of computer cores is complexity of the bio-neural computer cores and faster computing capabilities.

Bio-Neural Computer cores utilize Bio-Neural Gel Packs or BNGPs for transfer of information. To quote a section of the AC-20 manual from Starfleet Advanced Starship Design Bureau: _N__ormally mounted at strategic locations along the ODN pathways, each BNGP consists of an artificial bio-fluid that allows transmission of neural signals. The heart of the BNGP is a packet of neural clusters, grown copies of strands similar to those found in the brains of sentient beings. These clusters give the ship's computer 'instinctive' data processing and routing ability as well as allowing the ship's computer to utilize 'fuzzy logic' to speed up probability calculations much as a living, breathing entity would. By distributing gel packs throughout a starship's computer system information can be organized more efficiently, therefore processed more quickly and speeding up response time._

The data entry went by easier than expected, the computer on the gateway received the information easily, calculated and adjusted for error, then broadcasted to both ships that it was ready for activation. Endeavour then began to emit a power transfer beam to the gateway. The gateway came to life as its own micro generators sparked to life, stoking the embers that Endeavour lit. After a moment the gateway was fully online, indicating it was still ready for activation.

Kelvin entered the activation code and both Endeavour and Kelvin gave the gateway some distance as it came online. After a few moments, the gateway indicated ready. Endeavour acknowledged and began to emit tachyon pulses at alternating frequencies from her main deflector, soon an aperture began to form, followed by sensors detecting subspace distortions and detection of triquantum waves, finally the aperture opened completely and the conduit was stable.

Endeavour hailed Kelvin.

"Captain Taylor, just wanted to say thank you for all your assistance" Alona said with a smile.

"Good luck Benson, hurry back, I am sure there will be many people wanting you to return as quickly as possible" Taylor said.

"End transmission" Alona said, turned and sat in her chair.

"Alright, begin emitting the chroniton field throughout the ship. Begin projecting a structural integrity field ahead of the ship, let me know when you're all ready" Alona said. After a moment, everyone reported ready and Alona ordered Endeavour into the aperture.

Kelvin remained at the gateway for 5 minutes after Endeavour had entered the conduit before she targeted the gateway with her weapons. Just as Kelvin was about to fire, her sensors detected a cloaked vessel nearby when a Scimitar-class Warbird decloaked some 50,000 kilometers off her port quarter. Captain Taylor had opened hailing frequencies when the Scimitar opened fire with all 19 forward facing disruptor cannons and fired a full spread of eight photon torpedoes from every one of the 18 forward facing torpedo tubes. Kelvins shields managed to take most of the incoming disruptor and torpedo fire but they finally failed after the sixth salvo of torpedo. Badly damaged, Kelvin was lucky enough to return fire, but Captain Taylor knew she could not last long, every with just using the phasers and torpedoes for point defense.

Still keeping his part of the mission in mind, Taylor managed to move Kelvin between the Scimitar and the Gateway, putting his forward shields and the bow of the ship into the heavy fire. Seriously outgunned and taking extremely heavy damage, Captain Taylor ordered abandon ship, then with her remaining stern torpedo launchers set to rapid fire, Captain Taylor opened fire on the gateway. Kelvin managed to fire two full salvos of ten torpedoes each, nearly depleting his entire magazine, at the gateway completely destroying it. Kelvin then rolled to port, bringing her ventral weapons and shields to bear, but moments after she rolled her warp core breached after a photon torpedo ripped through main engineering. It cut through the upper deck section of the warp core as well as punched through her plasma coolant tanks and one antimatter containment tank. The warp core breach was instantaneous, of all 48 of her 6-man lifeboats on board, only nine lifeboats and one type-9 shuttle were far enough away from the explosion when she was consumed in matter/antimatter fire.

When Kelvin failed to report in, four days later, the Federation launched a full investigation into her whereabouts at the time she last reported in. Hampered by the Romulans for several months which turned into a year, the Federation finally gave in and officially listed her lost, with all hands aboard. The Halus, the Scimitar-class Warbird that had opened fire on the Kelvin, was the only vessel that knew the fate of the ship and her crew. Unfortunately, the Romulans were under extremely strict orders to keep the fact that there were more Scimitar-class warbirds in existence a secret. Secrecy of said ships was the primary reason why the Halus had no choice but to open fire on the Kelvin and the capture her surviving crew to take back to Rator III for processing then to be quietly shuffled to mining camps where most of them remained for the rest of their lives.

As Endeavour entered the aperture, Alona expected a jolt from the ship but nothing happened with the ship shifting at all beneath their feet, they simply began gliding through transwarp space. The gateway was programmed to eject them at a certain point, she just hoped it would be at their target locale. Their estimated time to cruise through transwarp space was around 10 minutes. Considering Voyager spent 23 minutes in transwarp space while traveling from the transwarp hub to earth, Endeavours trip was to be relatively shorter.

After a moment the ship began shifting, rocking, then a constant vibration with a humming background noise. It was due to the gravitational shear and that the ship was not originally designed to project a structural integrity field ahead of it. While not designed for it, the ship could handle it albeit noisily. Four minutes into transwarp space. A severe jolt rocked Endeavour.

"Gravitational shear is increasing slightly, compensating" Bari said, she was at her bridge station instead of down in Main Engineering.

Of all people on board, Bari was the most experienced when it comes to transwarp usage, being a former Borg. Alona had an idea of what transwarp travel was, the basics on how it is works and how to get a conduit going, but the intricacies of it, how to use it, Bari was far more versed in transwarp travel.

"May as well intensify the chroniton field as well, just to be safe" Radis said.

"Agreed" Kim said

"Done" Bari said.

The humming increased and the vibrations got worse to where it seemed like the ship was hitting turbulence in an atmosphere. Eight minutes into transwarp space. Alona gripped her armrests a little tighter. 'Please land us in the target locale' she thought. She didn't like the thought of being used to test experimental technology, especially when there was nearly 1,200 extra people involved, all of them relying on her to make sure the shit doesn't hit the fan, or if it does, it doesn't hit the fan too hard. She shook her head slightly.

"Exit aperture detected ahead, another three minutes" T'saal said.

Three minutes? We should have only a minute left. 'Dammit, I knew something was going to happen' Alona thought. At least we shouldn't be too far off course then, maybe 15,000 to 18,000 light years instead of 13,000. Only adds a couple extra years to the journey, its fine. Alona closed her eyes, tightening her grip on the armrests even more. Another heavy jolt.

"Gravitational shear is still increasing, I am widening the projection field and intensifying it" Bari said calmly. After a moment, the turbulence-like bumps calmed down a little.

She began breathing deeply, calming herself. She put her hands together but left her index fingers extended. On the tips of those two fingers, she focused, imagining a calming ball of light emanating from the tips of her fingers. Kim glanced over at her, looking at what she was doing.

"Captain?" he said quietly. Alona opened her eyes and looked at him.

"I'm ok, I'm fine" she said.

"30 seconds" T'saal said. 29, 28, 27, 26...

"You sure?" Kim asked.

Alona nodded. 19, 18, 17...

Kim nodded once and looked back to his console, entering in a couple commands, then turned his attention to the view screen

"10, 9, 8, 7" T'saal began counting down.

"3, 2, 1. Exiting, NOW!"

Endeavour gave a great heave and a shudder as she exited the transwarp corridor. Immediately, Bari began to realign the structural integrity field and shut down the chroniton field.

"Large object ahead! Weapons fire detected all around us!" T'saal said.

"Red Alert! Get the shields up now!" Kim bellowed.

The viewscreen portrayed the hulk of a massive ship, easily dwarfing Endeavour, drifting. Plasma fires could be easily seen from it. There was no external lighting which indicated the vessel had no power. Endeavour was drifting as well, impulse engines having to cold start, but maneuvering thrusters still worked. A couple of torpedos zipped by the bow of the Endeavour streaking towards another target. Energy beams streamed by her stern.

Kolaas was frantically entering in commands, the ship was reacting sluggishly, but she was at least reacting. Slowly Endeavours bow dipped and she slipped under the hulk.

"Impulse is back online" Bari said.

"Shields are online, charging weapons" Viir-Keim said.

"Hold your fire" Alona said, "Do not fire unless we're purposefully fired upon, I can understand a stray torpedo missing its target and hitting us or a phaser blast missing its target and hitting us, but if we're attacked specifically, return fire only at the attacking vessel. Mr. Kolaas, get us out of here" she added.

"Aye, ma'am" Kolaas replied.

Endeavour shuddered, Alona looked at Viir-Keim. "A stray tetryon blast ma'am, shields held" he said.

Endeavour zigged, zagged, ducked and dived through the battle. It appeared the battle was taking up at least an AU's distance of space. No one specifically targeted her, but many of the ships scanned her thoroughly, only to realize that the ship is not from these parts and is only trying to get out of the fight. Endeavour never fired at anyone and had increased to 3/4 impulse to get out quickly. Jumping to Warp was too dangerous at the moment, too many objects in her path that she would collide with in her transition from sub-light to faster than light.

During her escape Endeavour was scanned several times, even target but never fired upon. When departing Endeavour did plenty of scanning as well. As it turned out, it appeared that the two sides battling were the Hirogen and Benthan species. According to Voyagers computer database, Hirogen ships never really grouped together unless they were hunting a relatively tough adversary so it was confusing to see several hundred Hirogen vessels working as a fleet in battle against a fleet of Benthan ships. After several minutes, Endeavour exited the battlefield. As she exited, she detected two Hirogen battleships following her.

Like most Hirogen vessels, their "battleships" were "small" considering the size of other battleships encountered by Starfleet. Around the size of an Intrepid-class starship, these battleships packed considerable firepower for their size. A pair of these battleships could easily overpower an Intrepid-class starship, maybe even a Luna-class starship, but the Hirogen had never encountered a Sovereign-class starship. What they also never encountered was Alona Benson.

Following standard procedure, Alona hailed the two battleships following her. As she expected, neither responded to her hails, both had charged weapons and were moving in an attack formation.

"Hirogen warships, this the Federation starship Endeavour, stand down, do not fire. We have no quarrel with you or the Benthans, we wish to peacefully dep-" Alona was interrupted by Endeavour shuddering under several blasts from their plasma cannons.

"Mr. Kolaas, take us to warp, nearest uninhabited system" Alona said. Endeavour leaped into warp, but the battleships jumped into warp after her, they managed to catch up to her and began firing again.

Endeavour rocked and shuddered under Alona's feet. Her shields could take this kind of fire easily, but at some point Endeavour is going to have to fight back. "Hail them again, tell them if they fire on us one more time, we will be forced to return fire" she said.

The Hirogen warships did not respond and continued firing. Endeavours shields easily ate up the incoming fire. Alona guessed that they assumed that most Federation vessels were like Voyager, unfortunately for them, they were going to find out differently. She sighed.

"Very well, Mr. Kolaas take us out of warp and come about, execute evasive pattern echo-niner-niner, Viir-Keim, attack pattern delta-four if you please" Alona said.

Endeavour dropped out of warp and snapped to port, slowing to 2/3 impulse power, standard combat speed for a Federation starship. Following Endeavour, the Hirogen dropped out of warp about 110,000 kilometers behind her. Her quick turn to port, baring her broadside, forced the Hirogen battleships to separate into two different directions, Endeavour open fire on the closest one, firing a few quick bursts from her phasers forcing the battleship to flee. Seeing this, the second battleship came around, firing rapidly on Endeavours starboard quarter.

Viir-Keim obliged the Hirogen battleship. Endeavour rolled and came starboard, lashing the Hirogen battleship with her phasers and firing four quantum torpedoes at the ship. Having never seen or experienced quantum torpedoes before, Endeavours small four-torpedo salvo actually bypassed the Hirogens ships shields and impacted on its hull.

While only trying to disable the vessel, neither Viir-Keim or Alona had realized that quantum torpedoes resonance frequencies could bypass Hirogen shield technology. As they impacted on the hull, Endeavours sensors detected several hull breaches then a warp core breach in progress. Quickly, Alona tried to beam the Hirogen crew aboard, however, their shields were still up. Having no choice but to move to a safe distance, they watched as the Hirogen vessel exploded. The entire time Alona had tried to hail them and request they lower their shields but again, they never answered hails.

Silence filled the bridge as the ship exploded, most of the bridge crew had never experienced having destroyed an attacking vessel before. It wasn't Alona's first ship she had destroyed in battle, having served during the Dominion War and some of the border skirmishes since then, the shock of it had stopped getting to her, she knew that it wasn't their intention to destroy the vessel, but she never expected the quantum torpedoes to just go through their shields like they weren't there. By the looks of Kolaas and Viir-Keim, it wasn't their first time killing someone either.

Alona broke the silence with a sharp command, "Get us out of here, Mr. Kolaas, resume previous course, maximum warp"

She was disgusted though. Not with Viir-Keim or herself, but with the Hirogen. They did not request for help, they didn't launch escape pods or lifeboats, they didn't even lower their shields while their ship destroyed itself. She understood their mentality, they were a warrior species, similar to Klingons they might value an honorable death. While barbaric, it was their culture, their societal mentality and she had no right to impose upon it. She shook her head, what if there were children abo-. No Alona, you know better than to go down that road, don't even think about it.

"T'saal, have you ascertained our distance yet?" Alona asked after a moment.

"Yes ma'am, by my calculations, by the verification of star charts, Voyagers database, and Starfleets Stellar Cartography onboard database, we are 49,879 light years away from Federation space, approximately 36,929 light years off our targeted exit point. Our estimated time at maximum speeds to return to Federation space is 18 years, 10 months" T'saal said calmly.

Alona chuffed, "Well, shit" she said with a smile.


	6. Chapter 6, Intruders

_Captains Log, Stardate 67872.4. 18 years, 9 months, and 28 days is how long the ship would take to return to the nearest Starfleet deep space outpost. We've been in the Delta Quadrant for two days without much incident. When we initially got here, some Hirogen hounded after us but they had quickly decided it wasn't worth it to fight us. I just hope they don't try again. I hate to make some enemies the first day of class. We've just entered orbit around an uncharted, uninhabited M-class planet and our science personnel have been frothing at the bit to go down planet-side. So, to make everyone happy, I think I will authorize some time for them to check out the planets surface_

Endeavour entered orbit over MCP-2219 fourteen hours ago. An uninhabited M-class planet in an uninhabited system currently in a period of time similar to the Paleozoic Permian era of Earth. The system didn't even have a name, just a number. Roughly the size of Neptune, quite large for an M-class planet, had several animal species that was detected. Its land masses, a super-massive archipelagos. Fortunately there were a couple "uninhabited" islands where the animals were not detected but there was plenty of flora, so Alona finally caved after some pestering from T'saal and authorized some geologists, botanists, and other scientists use of a type-11 shuttle for study of the planet as well as to shuttle down equipment. Under no circumstances were they to land on any island with an animal populace.

The various studies turned out that they were going to take a few days time to complete, with LT T'saal supervising the teams on the ground while Viir-Keim and Colonel Reed both provided the required protection while planet-side. Since the ship would be in orbit for a few days Alona had decided that it would be a good time for the Osprey wing and its CAG or Commander Aerospace Group, some time to stretch its legs, get some flight time in and to meet the CAG. Endeavours CAG was a Denobulan Commander named Toom.

Like most Denobulans, Commander Toom was almost always and sometimes unnaturally cheerful with most of the other crew. He had light brown hair, with an average, athletic build. His eyes, like other Denobulans changed color with his mood, had a sharp nose and prominent ridges along his face. With his own men, he never raised his voice nor severely reprimanded them, he typically told them to simply try harder and do better. Alona hadn't met him yet due to the work of getting the ship to the Delta Quadrant. Now that they were here, she had a little more time on her hands.

"Flight Deck" Alona said as her and Kim entered the Turbolift.

"Have you met him yet?" Alona asked.

"Sort of, he's a Denobulan, have you dealt with that species before?" Kim replied.

Alona nodded and he continued, "I pretty much got them settled in quickly when they came aboard, then came back to the bridge, I remember thinking, we need to get going and fast. It was like you and I were running from the Federation because we stole the ship or something"

"More like we had several admirals kicking us in the ass and telling us to get going. I never seen admirals act that way before, not even when I was working with Admiral Janeway"

He shrugged, "Me neither, but, now we're here and we're doing the easy part of this mission"

"I wouldn't be so sure that this is the easy part of the mission. At least we can hit up some systems that the admiral had decided to skip past. I am frustrated that we're 49,000 light years from home, but, here we are, gotta make due with the hand we're dealt with"

The doors opened and they stepped out into the corridor. Alona followed Kim as they walked into the area of the ship they called the "Flight Deck". The Aerospace Group didn't necessarily take up an entire deck, but they did take up a nice sized chunk in and around the secondary shuttlebay turned into the Hanger Bay. Also called the "Hanger Deck" the secondary shuttlebay was retrofit before they departed Utopia Planetia to house 18 Peregrine-class space-superiority fighters or 14 Osprey-class multi-role aerospace craft.

While only having 14 "birds" available the Aerospace Group compliment is 80 strong, including support staff, maintenance crews, ordinance handlers and the pilots themselves. While not maintenance intensive, the Osprey-class multi-role aerospace craft was a versatile craft capable of both space and atmospheric operations and is capable of being loaded with Q-IV Heavy Quantum Torpedoes and specialized T-II Transphasic Torpedoes. Commonly called "Shipkillers" these specific load-outs for the aerospace craft are for operations against larger vessels and capital ships, typically used to support the mothership in combat against said vessels. Normal operational load-outs allow for micro-photon or micro-quantum torpedos to supplement the relatively powerful type-8 pulse phaser cannons the birds used.

The Osprey is also capable of operating over long distances without the support of the mother ship. Capable of warp flight, its maximum speed is warp 6.5 for a four hour duration, afterwards the ship must slow to sub-light speeds to allow the systems and engines to cool, while normal cruising speeds is warp four to warp five. Faster than both a type-11 shuttle and a Danube-class runabout, the Osprey is also capable of supporting more than just the pilot. With enough space for three people including the pilot, the tiny aft cabin has three bunks, a small desk, and a small food and beverage replicator making the craft quite versatile and semi-self sufficient for extended operations away from the mothership. In an emergency, the small craft can squeeze in five people, although its quite uncomfortable and in those cases, its standing room only.

"Still, I was lost once out here, I really don't like the fact I am lost again out here" Kim said. He was smiling but Alona could tell it was more forced than genuine. She didn't blame him for feeling that way.

"I understand how you feel, perhaps we can head to a holosuite after you get off duty, I know a couple good programs to take your mind off things" Alona said.

"Maybe later, both of us still have plenty of work to do and we need to make sure the crew is mentally sound before we start playing ourselves"

Alona nodded as they turned down another corridor, "Fair enough, but if you seem like your getting too stressed out, I am sending you to sickbay, Jan will get you sorted out"

Kim chuckled as they entered the hanger bay.

When they entered the bay, a flight deck member shouted, "Officer on Deck!" and came to attention. "Carry on" Alona said, and they did so. Alona stopped the nearest Airman and asked for the CAG.

"The CAG is in the flight line, getting himself and some others ready for flight operations, this way ma'am" the young airman said and lead them to the flight line, originally a few connected storage rooms turned into a briefing room, locker room, and offices for the CAG and his cadre. The CAG was at his desk getting flight plans ironed out when the airman chimed his door.

"Enter"

The door opened, Alona and Kim entered. Toom looked over his shoulder, then stood to greet them.

"Ah Captain, I was wondering when we were going to meet finally! Commander, good to see you too" Tooms said with a grin, extending his hand.

Alona shook his hand and grinned back, man, this guy is contagious, "Please to meet you Mr. Tooms, I apologize for not meeting with you when you got on board but I was under a tight time schedule to get the ship to where we are now. So, I am trying to make up for that now that we're settled for the most part and in the Delta Quadrant" she said.

"Apology accepted, I hear we're actually deeply lost in the Delta Quadrant, is that true?"

"Well, that depends on your definition of 'Lost'. So to answer that question, I would say: Yes and no. Technically, we are much deeper in the Quadrant than we where we were supposed to exit to from the transwarp corridor"

"How far out are we, how far off course?" Toom asked.

"We're 49,870 light years from the nearest Federation outpost, around 36,920 light years off course. That's about the extent of the bad news. The good news is that we're in the same area that Voyager was in so, we have some information on the area, albeit 12 years old _and_ we can follow the same route Voyager took to get home"

Toom nodded, he seemed unfazed at the information. Well, at least hes taking it well, that's good. I don't know how well hes going to take it after a few months of this information settling in. Hes going to be away from his family for nearly 20 years, just hope he can handle it.

"I understand we have some flight operations in the agenda today captain?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Yes, we're going to be in orbit over this planet for the next couple of days, so I figured you and your people could stretch their legs, get some practice in working the Ospreys, run some combat patrols and whatnot. Interested?"

"Most definitely, if you excuse me, I have to finish finalizing these flight plans and get flight orders out to the pilots"

"Of course, if you need anything, please let me know" Alona said, shook Toom's hand again and departed with Kim.

On the bridge, the watch crew were calmly doing their duty, maintaining a mid-range orbit over the M-class planet was very simple. A couple adjustments were made and the ships computer did the rest. Sensors detected no vessels within the 23 light year envelope of the ship, the hourly away team report in was due in three minutes. Endeavours bridge watch was broken into three eight hour shifts: Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie, unless there is another situation going on, a bridge watch is always on duty. Everything was calm on the bridge, the XO was the OOD for the shift, everything was going by as routine. Three minutes passed and the away team reported in all ok, no issues had arisen and they watched on sensors as twelve Ospreys launched.

While not directly in command of flight operations, the bridge still kept them on sensors in case of anything. Flight operations control is ultimately managed by the CAG, however, he himself was out with this flight, and his second, Lieutenant Commander Sayuri Yamashita, a human, was commanding the flight from the TFIC or Tactical Flight Information Center. The TFIC is a space located near the Hanger Deck where all Osprey flight operations are handled, from Search and Rescue to combat operations. Typically the CAG is in charge of this space, unless the CAG is out in his craft, then the DCAG or Deputy Commander Aerospace Group commands the TFIC. While the TFIC handles all operations, it also reads the status of the rest of the ship as well, such as shield status, weapons, propulsion, structual intregrity, sensors, warp field status and so on to provide relevant data.

In an emergency, bridge control could be relinquished to the TFIC and Endeavour could be commanded from the TFIC, however, some systems the TFIC does not have the capability to monitor or control, such as weapons control. CMDR Yamashita watched on the Osprey flight Baker Wing perform various maneuvers. Modern "Ouija Board", an old earth slang term for a lighted flat table used to manage flight operations on an aircraft carrier, now display sensor data on what the birds are doing such as speed, heading, and weapons fire relevant to Endeavour. Each Osprey was designated as a small blue diamond with the pilots call-sign next to it. Enemy ships would come up as a red square with the origin species and class of the ship next to it, smaller targets such as fighters would come up as red diamonds.

"What the hell?" an ensign said, "Weapons fire detected on the planets surface!"

Kim looked towards the voice, it came from the communications/sensors station, "Get ahold of the away team, find out whats going on"

"Sir, they're reporting weapons fire from unknown number of sources, weapons appear to be a variant of a disruptor. Two security officers are injured and requesting immediate beam out to sickbay. The marines have formed a perimeter and are returning suppressing fire" the ensign said.

Kim opened a comms channel from the armrest command console, "Endeavour to Baker Wing, Commander, the away teams are requesting air support and overwatch"

"Acknowledged, be advised Endeavour, Baker Wing is operating with varied weapons. Either minimum required weapons loadout or no armaments" a voice stated over the comms.

"DCAG receives, Baker Wing, training birds return home. Grandmaster, Wizard, Fox, Charger, and Achilles have minimum required weapons load-out, proceed planet-side for air support operations" another voice said over the comms.

"Thanks for the information, Baker Wing, Endeavour out" Kim said and closed his end of the comm, other orders from the TFIC were going out but he wasn't hearing them. He tapped his combadge, "Captain Benson, your presence is requested on the bridge"

"On my way" Alona replied.

"Ensign, start scanning for a cloaked ship, if you can't find one then scan for anything out of the ordinary, wierd fields, odd particle emissions, I don't care what but find me something" Kim said.

"Aye sir" the ensign said.

"Figures, the shit has to hit the fan on my shift" Kim said to himself.

"Watch your left flank!" Viir-Keim shouted over the weapons fire, he had hunkered down with the marine perimeter LP/OP or Listening Post/Observation Post. While armed and returning fire, it was the main location on where the away teams commander had hunkered down against the incoming fire. Forming a horseshoe shape around the non-combatants and their equipment, the perimeter had mixed security and M.A.C.O. forces returning fire at whatever had begun shooting at them.

T'saal tapped his combadge, "Away teams to Endeavour, we could use an emergency beam out of all personnel on site and our equipment"

"Away teams, this is Endeavour, we're unable to beam you out, theres some sort of distortion field preventing transport. Look for a transport inhibitor. Baker Wing is also inbound to provide air support and rescue of most injured, ETA 2 mikes. I need information Lieutenant, tell me about the attackers" Alona said.

"Whomever they are, they're using some sort of personal cloaking technology similar to Jem'Hadar cloaking fields, however, they are able to fire and remain cloaked. We're shooting at ghosts Captain" Viir-Keim said as he fired his pulse phaser rifle, then a thought hit him.

"Colonel, are your marines carrying concussion grenades?" he asked.

Reed was using some rocks as cover away from him but within shouting distance, "Yes, why?"

"Have them start throwing them at where the incoming fire is coming from. The concussions should disable their cloaking fields, then we can bring them down" Viir-Keim said.

"Good idea" she said and began informing the marines.

Loud, low, throaty thumps from the concussion explosions rocked the area, followed by roaring screams from overhead as the Ospreys came down peppering exposed enemy areas with pulse phaser fire. One Osprey set down behind the perimeter line, the wind from the turbines, jets and engines on it knocked equipment down, but that wasn't important. It was the CAG's Osprey, "Grandmaster" was scrawled across its side, with a painting of a bald, largely bearded, old human wearing what appeared to be a dress or some sort of robe, Viir-Keim couldn't tell. The human was sitting with his feet crossed, hovering over the ground near the nose of the bird.

"Get the wounded aboard" Toom said excitedly, his Osprey had begun to take fire, its shields shimmering, easily absorbing the small arms fire. Soon, the three injured were aboard and Toom lifted off, spitting pulse phaser fire here and there as he did.

Viir-Keim's combadge chirped, then said, "Warning! Incoming orbital strike, all combatants hit the deck" Viir-Keim dropped to his stomach and covered his head as two Ospreys sped by firing micro-quantum torpedoes into an exposed target.

"Firing" a voice said through his combadge, then a bright red-white flash lit the area, followed by a short but continuous deafening roar, and the ground shook as if there was a heavy earthquake happening. 'That was one of Endeavours phaser arrays' he thought absently.

Viir-Keim looked up and saw a large column of smoke rising into the air when his vision filled with shimmering blue light, next thing he knew he was lying on a transporter pad, by the looks of it transporter room 6. Quickly, Viir-Keim stood, thanked the transporter operator, then left headed for the bridge. As he walked up to the turbolift, Endeavour rocked and shuddered. The ship rocked, shuddered, and bounced several more times before he walked onto the bridge. Alona glanced back at him as he stepped onto the bridge then over to his station.

"I trust the injured were not too serious" she said turning back to the viewscreen.

"No ma'am, Dr. Novana should have them back up soon" he replied, then stated, "Another Hirogen warship decloaking, its off out port-quarter"

Endeavour was outnumbered, four ships had decloaked were trying to surround her. Endeavour quickly rolled and shifted starboard, then broke orbit at full impulse as soon as the away teams were aboard. When they attempted to jump to warp but her warp core had suddenly dropped offline and the Hirogen fired on her. The Hirogens disabled her phasers, torpedoes and limited impulse a maximum speed of half impulse, Endeavour was essentially dead in the water with four predators circling in.

"We're being hailed" Radis said.

"On screen" Alona said, stood and took a couple steps forward.

A Hirogens head appeared on screen, he did not have his mask on and he grinned as Alona appeared on his screen. "Ah, the daughter of Captain Janeway I presume?" the Hirogen asked.

"No, my name is Alona Benson, I am captain of the-"

"Yes, Yes, captain of the Federation starship Endeavour. A Sovereign-class warship. Tell me Captain Benson, what is the Federation doing back in our space and what are you doing on one of our hunting preserves?"

"We didn't realize this was a Hirogen hunting preserve, otherwise we would've left this planet alone, we were conducting surveys, scientific studies on the planet. Thats why we had decided to land on islands that did not have any animal life on them"

"We were there though, and captain, you violated our territory. Do you know what the Hirogen Hegemony does to those that violate our territory?" The Hirogen captain asked as Hirogens began decloaking on Endeavours bridge.

'They were already on board' she thought.

Quickly looking around, she counted eight. Alona smiled, she'd been feeling the need to let out her frustration on something. "End Transmission" she said, then spun to the nearest Hirogen and knocked the disruptor out of his hands. After a couple quick jabs and a snapping cross that nearly put the Hirogen down, she physically picked up Hirogen off his feet, then rammed him head first into the deck, denting the deck plating and breaking the poor bastards neck.

"Computer! Red Alert, Intruder Alert, all hands to battle stations!" she shouted as disruptor and phaser fire erupted around her.

'Thats how you're gonna beat 'em Alona, these motherfuckers keep underestimating you' she thought as she got her hands on another Hirogen.


	7. Chapter 7, Hunted

Phaser and disruptor beams lanced all through the bridge of the Endeavour, followed by pulse phaser blasts from the M.A.C.O. phaser compression pistols. Miraculously, Alona did not get hit by weapons fire. Already she had killed three Hirogen hunters before she grabbed one of their disruptor carbines and began firing at the remaining Hirogen. She didn't realize there was a hunter behind her before she was struck by a disruptor rifle to the back of the head. It was probably everything the hunter had put into the strike. It didn't knock her out, she dropped down to one knee and put her hand to the back of her head, then looked at the hand to see blood on it. It stunned her. 'I'm bleeding?' she thought, then felt a very large hand grab her by the shoulder and they both beamed out.

Kim had been firing his phaser pistol at several Hirogens, more had beamed onto the bridge and there were reports from security and marines where they were fending off boarders. He was amazed with the captain, he had never seen someone pick up a Hirogen so easily and kill it without having a weapon in hand, then he gawked at her as she repeated the same action twice more before picking up a dead Hirogens disruptor rifle and begin firing. He had managed to glance over at the captain as he ducked behind the console again to see her get hit from behind by the largest Hirogen he had ever seen. The Hirogen must have been nearly two and a half meters tall. When he hit the captain with his disruptor rifle it broke in two, she wasn't unconscious, she just went down to one knee with her left hand to the back of her head. At that moment, the oversized Hirogen grabbed her shoulder and beamed out.

"Captain!" Kim shouted as they beamed out.

Once the captain had been beamed out the remaining Hirogen beamed out as well. The view-screen was still active and he watched at the ship cloaked jumped to warp. "Shit" he said to himself then looked around the bridge.

"Anyone injured?" he asked aloud.

The turbolift doors opened and three marines in power armor entered with their rifles at the ready.

"Clear up" one said.

"Clear down" said another and they lowered their rifles.

"Commander Kim, I am Sergeant Bonner. Colonel Reed has ordered fire teams to sweep and clear the ship, so far no reports of any remaining boarders. What happened sir? Where's Captain Benson?" Sergeant Bonner asked.

"A Hirogen broke his disruptor rifle over her head then grabbed her and beamed out, after that the rest of them beamed out" Kim replied.

"Was the captain dead?" another armored marine asked while examining the broken rifle.

"No, everyone, back to your posts, I want a systems status in five minutes. Kim to Engineering" Kim said. Everyone returned to their assigned consoles, the M.A.C.O. armored troopers began to remove the dead Hirogen out from underfoot.

"How can I help you Commander?" Bari replied, she sounded perturbed.

"Do we have warp?" Kim asked.

"Not for another hour or so sir, we're having to restart the warp core"

"Any way you could speed that up?"

"We could sir, but we'd have to bypass safeties"

"Do it, the captain was captured and beamed off the ship, we need to find her and get her back"

"Aye sir" Bari said, then closed the channel. "You heard the man, the skipper has been captured by these fucks" she said as she kicked a dead Hirogen laying on the deck, "So get that warp core back online, we have some hunting of our own to do" she finished as her engineering teams double timed it.

Orlok is a veteran hunter, hell, he should have his own ship soon. This Federation captain was an oddity though, he broke his own rifle over her head and shes not dead, shes not even unconscious shes still standing. In fact, had he not placed her behind a forcefield, she would have probably have killed him. He had never seen a human fight so ferociously or be so physically strong, she was at least as strong as two hunters put together, maybe three. It took five veteran hunters just to get her into containment. Bioscans of her indicate that her small intestine is extremely long, making it an interesting trophy. Not to mention, her genetic structure indicates that she has been genetically modified, which explains her physical capabilities.

Orlok looked at Alona, she stood in her cell, both arms manacled in front of her connected to the manacles around her ankles. Both manacles were attached to eye on the deck via a chain. No way she could break out of that. She was staring at the deck, her hair covering her face. Those haunting grey eyes of hers seemed to pierce to the soul of every hunter she looked at. Since she was beamed aboard, she had already killed three heavily armed hunters with her bare hands. He needed to talk to Gerlek, see what he wanted to do with the Federation captain.

A young hunter, Sek, he believed, stepped up to the forcefield. He watched the Federation captain, as a hunter watches his prey. He looked at Orlok.

"Lower the forcefield, I want to take its small intestine" Sek said.

"No, you will die. This prey is unique and should be hunted properly. Not killed in a cage like some trophyless animal" Orlok said.

"Need I remind you who your superior is? Now, lower the field"

Alona raised her head, watching Sek and Orlok.

"No"

"Then move aside, I shall do it myself" Sek said and pushed Orlok aside. Orlok unclamped a remote from his armor and depressed the button. With a clank, the manacles holding Alona dropped off her and fell to the deck. Sek glanced at Orlok, over to Alona and deactivated the forcefield smiling.

"Good, you at least give it a fighting chance. Prey, make it hard for me to kill you, please" Sek said grinning.

"Heh, I'll give you more than that" Alona said with a grin.

Sek pulled a large knife and stepped towards Alona, she simply shifted until she was standing with her legs shoulder-width apart. Sek, his left hand was open and his right held the knife. Alona locked eyes with him, her hands still at her sides. Sek beckoned her out of her containment cell for which she took a couple steps out. Orlok had stepped back, a smile on his face as he unslung his tetryon rifle. Glancing at Orlok for a second, Alona returned her gaze back to Sek.

"You going to kill me if I kill him?" Alona asked.

Orlok chuckled, "No, no, this is for my protection, not his"

Sek swung his knife a couple times, Alona side stepping both times, then lunged at her thrusting his knife at her. Alona caught his right hand by the wrist with her left hand, his arm was fully extended. She then chopped with her right hand right into the crook elbow of the Hirogen, the blow was not aimed at damaging the elbow but using the natural movements of the body. With the Hirogens arm bending as if he was doing an arm curl, Alona still controlling the right hand by the wrist, drove the knife up to the hilt into the throat of the Hirogen. This movement occurring only in about a second, stunned Orlok. Sek took a slow step back, dropped to his knees, gargled and fell to the deck. He was still holding the knife that had killed him, appearing as if he decided to commit suicide and stabbed himself in the throat.

Alona looked at Orlok, who motioned her back into the cell. She remained where she stood.

"This is set to maximum, if I fire, you will be vaporized. I've seen you regenerate from the wounds you recieved, I don't think even you could regenerate from being vaporized. Now, if you cooperate with me, I will not shackle you again" Orlok said and motioned her back to her cell again. Still locking eyes with him she slowly stepped back into her cell. Orlok still keeping the rifle trained on her, reactivated the forcefield.

"What happened? I thought the Hirogen were happy hunting on holostations"

"Photonic prey is for gutless and weak hunters who do not like the feel of real blood on their hands"

"So you don't like hunting holograms?"

"No, many of us feel the same way. Even if you can make the prey as unique as you can think of, its still just assembled photons. Holograms are mainly used for training new hunters now, besides, you cannot gain any trophies from images"

"You know, by now, my ship is probably tracing your warp trail. They won't stop at anything to retrieve me" Alona said.

"We have assumed as much. You people from the Federation are extremely resourceful, now, the Master Hunter will be coming down here tomorrow to decide your fate. If I were you, I would be polite to him when he arrives, he can simply decide you are too much of a problem to hunt and have you vaporized where you stand" Orlok said, then walked off. Sitting on the bench behind her Alona put her face into her hands, she remained like that for the rest of the night.

Endeavour cruised at warp 7, her sensors working overtime following the warp trail left by the Hirogen vessel. They had trailed the ship for almost 12 hours now, it seeming to zig-zag a lot stopping at several different systems along the way. To the bridge crew it seemed that they were searching for prey, the holographic technology provided by Janeway so long ago didn't seem to sate their thirst of hunting. Kim had been up on the bridge for going on 18 hours, he was tired but he was not going to give up on getting the captain back.

He had been racking his brain on why the Hirogen would want the captain. Scratching his chin, he stared at the deck thinking. First thing is he needed to get ahead of the Hirogen ship, intercept it, get the captain back aboard and then worry about why they wanted the captain. So to get ahead of the ship they might want to look for systems around-

"Sir?"

"Yes?" Kim said looking up.

Radis was standing over him, he looked tired too but probably not as bad as he looked now. He smiled at Kim.

"XO, I know you're devoted on getting the captain back but please, for everyones sake, get some rest. It's my watch, I'll let you know if we find anything" Radis said.

"No, you can go back to your post Mr. Radis" Kim said.

"Sir, as an executive officer, I am required to give the commanding officer advice and relief, especially at times of great stress or extended work hours to alleviate fatigue thereby preventing poor decisions and use of bad judgement, even if I am acting. So, I respectfully request that you get off my bridge and get your ass in bed. If you refuse me again, sir, I will have the CMO relieve you of duty until you get some sleep"

Kim chuckled, "You play too hard sometimes" and stood.

Radis thumbed him towards the turbolift then sat in the seat he was occupying, "To be honest, I wanted to sit sir, and you were in the nicest chair in the house so..." he trailed off.

Kim shook his head and entered the turbolift, he hadn't even taken off his uniform when he climbed into bed. He was woken five hours later by Radis, they had tracked down the Hirogen ship.

The Hirogen vessel was in a high level orbit over a planet with several late bronze-age sentient populus on it. The system wasn't on any of the charts, not even Voyagers database had anything on this planet. The Hirogen vessel didn't respond when Endeavour came into the system, the reason, they found out when they took up a synchronous orbit with it was because the ship had no one aboard. The vessels computer was maintaining its orbit, all other systems were down to conserve power. Kim had decided that it would be simpler to launch some birds to watch the Hirogen vessel, should someone come back aboard it and power up its systems, the Ospreys were to disable its engines and weapons.

Endeavour then began to scan the planet below, it was a gargantuan M-class planet, around the size of Jupiter, the planet had several sentient species on the planet. Some were evolved from the same genome but others were of a completely different species of sentient being. There were several stone structures with large, open centers were detected all over the planet large enough to land an Intrepid-class starship in. Most of them were populated, the anthropologists aboard thought that the structures were city-states and others were temples. There was a road system on planet stretching for kilometers before it reached a small village or another city-state. Endeavour had already detected 21.4 billion inhabitants on the planet and a dense animal kingdom making detecting a human lifesign pretty hard if not impossible, however, it did not stop them trying.

As they thought, they did not detect anything specific, so they began to scan for advanced technology, such as EM emissions from power generators, tetryon particles, even transporter inhibitors. They detected EM emissions coming from a small uninhabited island chain, each "island" varying from the size of Australia to Japan. They matched known frequencies of Hirogen power generators, possibly an outpost.

"Colonel, I want powered-armor commandoes down there with an entire platoon of infantry backing them up. I can send down some birds to keep you covered by the air and a runabout will be on standby should you need it" Kim said.

Colonel Reed smirked, "A bit of overkill don't you think Commander?" she asked.

"Colonel, the captain is down there. Alive or dead, I want her back aboard and I don't care what it takes to bring her back"

"Sir, I'll bring back the skipper, I just ask that you keep Endeavour ready to depart as soon as my boys bring her back aboard. Sure, keep the runabout ready for evac in case a transport inhibitor is activated, but right now I want to know about the area I am sending my guys into. I don't want to send them into the fire without at least some intel on the area"

Kim took a deep breath, "Alright, I'll brief whoever you're sending down there in say, an hour?"

"Works for me" Reed said.

Master Hunter Gerlok was the largest Hirogen Alona had ever seen, she guessed he was at least over two and a half meters tall and his armor was adorned with various marks and small trophies to indicate his hunting prowess. He looked down at Alona, his eyes boring holes into hers. She did not look away, keeping her eyes locked with his. It was a minor battle of wills, two predators glaring at one another, seeing who would make the first move. They kept at this for three minutes before Orlok intervened and asked Gerlok what they should do with her.

"Have you performed a bioscan of her?" Gerlok asked.

"Yes, she had a long small intestine, a unique trophy, but her genetic structure is vastly different from that of a normal human, shes at least as physically strong as two hunters put together, maybe even three. Shes also faster than anything I've ever seen. She would make a very challenging hunt." Orlok said. Gerlok grunted in response.

"We're headed for Preserve 17b. She should be let loose from there. Prepare her for the hunt" Gerlok said, turned and departed. Orlok looked at Alona, sighed and shook his head.

"What is wrong?" Alona asked.

"You're being wasted. It's unfortunate Gerlok doesn't understand that. You would best serve in an Arena or a Hunters Pit" Orlok said.

"I am still getting the chance to live correct?"

"Yes, but again, you would serve better in the Arena or a Hunters Pit. Being placed on a planet to be hunted at the leisure of every hunter on planet is a waste of your capabilities and your trophies. You're life expectancy will be considerably less on the planet, than in the Arena or Pit. We hunters have not forgotten how ingenious you humans are, however, you...I don't think you're human, well not entirely anyway"

"No, you're wrong, I am entirely, 100% human. I'm just, genetically...superior, you could say"

Orlok lowered the forcefield and raised his rifle. "You need to be prepared, so, will you cooperate?" he asked.

"You're the one holding the rifle, I assume its set to maximum?" Alona said shrugging. Orlok nodded.

"I don't have a choice then" she said stepping out of the cell, her hands raised.

Several hours later, Alona found herself on a very large planet, from what she saw from the view-porthole, the area she was going to be "set loose" in was a jungle environment. Orlok had seen something in her and tossed her an old type-2 hand phaser - probably from Voyagers own weapons locker - and a semi-dull Hirogen knife, which was more like a small machete to her than a knife. The knife, she slung over her back and she holstered the phaser. Orlok nodded to her and she nodded back, "Good luck, as your people say" he said then without another word he turned back into the shuttle and took off.

She watched it rise into the air and shoot off westward. Alona looked around the ground for a moment, then sat down. She took off her left boot, then pinched either side of the heel. Luckily for her, the Hirogen didn't notice the soles of her boots were a little thick for common Federation boots. A little compartment opened a little, she slid the rest of the little drawer out and picked up the little tricorder. Over the years, the standard tricorder has gotten thinner and thinner to the point of being as thick as a small human hand folded closed.

Replacing the small compartment back, she put her boot back on and stood, opening the tricorder. Massive animal lifesign readings, some of them very large. Fresh water half a klick north. Mountains to the southeast about 18 klicks out. Fresh water, good place to start. These trees are pretty tall and she can gather her bearings there. She kept the tricorder out, scanning for any kind of advanced technology around. Her hopes were to maybe detect the Hirogens body armor systems or weapons but with their new cloaking technology, she wasn't sure if she would be able to detect them at all. She decided to scan for the same type personal cloaking fields that the Jem'Hadar use.

They may had gotten the idea from the Jem'Hadar, probably from hunting holograms of them, however she remembered that they did not appear on sensors. Perhaps she should scan for moving, high thermal sources, or small moving power sources like the power packs for their rifles. Nothing detected within a 25 kilometer radius, the maximum range the tricorder could scan for, well not small power sources anyway. She detected around 23 klicks west, a massive power reading, probably a power generator for their facility. The massive lifesigns from the flora and fauna were throwing scans off, so, for all she knew, shes probably being hunted as she stood there stupidly looking at her tricorder. She set it to pulse her hip should it detect any nearby small power sources or large animal lifesign, used it to find which way was north then put it away. She began walking north to the fresh water source, it was getting close to daylight was dimming so she began to hurry. After tonight, she planned, she would go to that detected power source and check it out, her survival and escape lay there.

Having a half klick hike hadn't bothered her, it was the animals, according to her readings some of the animals weighed several hundred kilograms to several tons. She pulled her phaser out and turned the setting up to 12. A typical type-2a hand phaser had a maximum setting of 20, which would vaporize just about everything it hit, but this was an older type-2 with a maximum setting of 16 so setting it to 12 is relatively high, enough to punch holes in tritanium alloy. Not many organisms were able to resist such a high setting, it made her feel a little more confident. She kept the phaser in her hand, ready to use at a moments notice.

She came upon a steep incline, so she began her climb upward. There was smaller underbrush to grab ahold of, but she was looked at what was going to grab before touching it. She didn't want to grasp some unknown camouflaged animal that could be possibly venomous. Without incident she reached the top of the hill and found a small lake. It was a break in the canopy of the jungle letting in the sunlight. Pulling out her tricorder, she scanned the water, making sure there were no amphibious animals in it, then began walking the shoreline. The water was crystal-clear, appearing from the shore about two meters max deep but according to the tricorder, the lake was 122 meters deep. It reminded her when she was on leave on Earth, she had decided to walk across North America, so she was passing through Montana and came across Flathead Lake. From shore, the lake appeared to her to be shallow enough to walk through, but

in reality, the lake was 100 meters deep.

This lake was also huge, Alona couldn't see the other shoreline, readings indicated its surface area is 1,398 square kilometers. The water was clean enough to drink, so she kneeled and slurped some down by cupping her hands. She looked around the shore, she stood on, there was some nearby trees close to the shore, their exposed roots provided a small alcove in which she could shelter in. On her way over, she picked up driftwood from the shore, dried twigs and leaves. She found some branches that had fallen from a tree that were extremely sturdy. She couldn't break the wood but it bend well. It could withstand impacts from her putting some extra swing into it while whacking the ground. It had begun to get dark when she came into the alcove of trees. Food would become an issue soon but she can manage at the moment.

Alona used the phaser to start a small fire, feeding it with the small branches of the same wood the fire burned strong, she figured those branches should keep it going for quite some time. She sat down near the first and pulled the knife from her back. She began chipping away at the strong branch she had found. Not sure to make a spear or to use it as a club she decided to carve out a point then left the rest as is. A walking stave would work just fine. It was going to be a long night, she had set the tricorder to pulse and chirp to wake her every thirty minutes so she could check her surroundings. Feeding the fire, she settled in for the evening.

During the night, she thought she spotted Endeavour in a low orbit. She wasn't sure, but it was definitely a starship, even if it wasn't Endeavour, it gave her hope and reminded her that her people were looking for her.


	8. Chapter 8, Alona's Past

Colonel Reed watched from the "Forward Command Base" which was the U.S.S. Venture, the other Danube Runabout aboard Endeavour. The entire powered-armor platoon plus another platoon of regular infantry to back them up was out there, sneaking up on the Hirogen outpost. Some of her boys had begun calling Hirogen outposts "Hunting Lodges" which fit their use nicely. Minimum living space, taxidermy equipment up the ass and then their wierd bio-fluid tanks they have. Reports from Voyagers previous encounters indicated that the fluid tanks were used to preserve trophies, break down enzymes from bodies to acquire said trophies, but also to process various beings into a soupy paste that the Hirogen were observed ingesting.

Ensign Kolaas had volunteered to come and assist with this mission, she figured it was to help counter that Klingon warrior urge to battle. It was like an addiction that they could not get rid of, Reed didn't mind him being along and he agreed to listen to her orders when it came to it.

"Contact, three sentries, 18 meters" a voice came over the comms.

"Confirmed" another voice said, then, "Orders?"

Reed tapped a console, "Remove them, maintain weapon silence, be observant for sensors"

"Copy"

Silence again. Commander Kim had requested that this operation to be as quiet as could be, there was a native settlement 280 kilometers west. Reed believe that was a sufficient distance not to worry about weapons fire sound, but Kim wanted to be safe. They were to maintain strict weapons sound control until they were fired upon by the Hirogen. Another factor was they were operating at night, it was also overcast, so light flashes on the horizon as well as light from fires may be another issue they might have to contend with the natives, should they become curious and investigate. Sound control was another reason why they didn't have air support or orbital support aside from emergency beam outs. Ospreys weren't quiet by any means, nor were their weapons. Orbital strikes with either phasers or torpedoes were even louder and did much greater damage, not good in a Search and Rescue operation. Pops from tetryon weapons sounded distantly.

"Under fire, weapons free. Sound suppressors off, clear 'em out" Sergeant Bonner's voice said calmly over comms.

Immediately, hisses and cracks from phaser pistols and rifles began returning fire. Reed had been standing, she took a seat at the helm station and took a deep breath. It starts. She sent the standard "if you need anything from me, please let me know" communique and sat back. It was the sit and wait time, let things play out and hope to god there isn't many casulties. Small skirmishes like this were the worse, high casulty rate, sometimes an unpredictable outcome with a simple goal. This time: locate Captain Benson and return her to the Endeavour, then get the fuck out of dodge.

Alona woke to her tricorder chirping loudly. It was detecting weapons fire near the large power source she had detected. She looked at what the tricorder was detecting. Phasers! She remembered from Voyagers logs that no other species in the quadrant used phasers, so that only meant one thing. She jumped up and quickly put out the small fire, grabbed her tricorder, then started running toward the weapons fire. She stopped. Use the damn tricorder Alona. Alona began punching in a communications contact with Endeavour, hopefully, she was orbiting close by.

Being as big as this planet is, she wouldn't be able to contact her if shes orbiting over the other side of the planet. The tricorder was trying to connect to the Endeavour so she canceled the command and entered it in through subspace, with a subspace communication, she should be able to speak to Endeavour as long as the ship is within a few light years.

"Captain Benson to Endeavour, do you read me?" Alona said. Silence. She repeated herself. Again, silence. She repeated herself once more. Silence. She was about to try maybe boosting the gain or widening the band but she heard a familiar voice, "Howdy Captain, did you enjoy your shore leave?"

She giggled, "Get me out of here Daro, now"

"We're locking on to your signal, standby"

She felt relieved when shimmering blue light filled her vision.

Colonel Reed recieved the notice that they had located and beamed Captain Benson aboard. Apparently, she was over 20 klicks away and somehow had a tricorder. It had detected Reeds platoons weapons fire, so she rigged the tricorder to work as a combadge to get ahold of Endeavour. Clever girl.

Commander Kim issued a recall notice to all planet side away teams and detached units to return to the ship immediately. Reed turned to one of the Starfleet members in the cockpit.

"Get us back to the ship" she said, then pressed her comm, "Colonel Reed to Endeavour, respectfully request you beam all platoons to the Marine Deck, Bay 4 for stand down and debriefing"

"Acknowledged"

"Colonel Reed to all platoons, standby for immediate beam out, the package has been located and returned home"

Reed had turned to face the view-port, they had just exited the atmosphere and Endeavour was just ahead, her shuttlebay door was open and ready. Reed could see the Hirogen vessel, lights were coming on the ship, its engines were lighting up as well. Reed put her hand on the Starfleet officers shoulder.

"Get us aboard quickly, I don't want to get caught out here when the shooting starts" and pointed towards the Hirogen warship. The officer followed her finger, then nodded, "Yes ma'am" and began rapidly punching in commands.

Kim stood, watching the Hirogen vessel powering up on the view-screen.

"Viir-Keim" he said.

"Aye sir, firing" he replied.

The Hirogen ship had just got its warp engines online and was attempting to go to warp when Endeavour tore into it, her phasers and photon torpedoes punching holes in its hull. Soon, the ship was drifting, venting atmosphere and leaking plasma. Endeavour then tractored her and went to full impulse, dragging the ship towards the sun. After a few moments, Endeavour dropped the tractor beam and went to warp, leaving the Hirogen to their fate. By T'saal's estimate, it will take the Hirogen vessel three days before it entered the corona of the star and there were plenty of lifesigns still aboard the ship.

12 hours later, Alona called all senior officers to the observation lounge. When everyone arrived, they found her looking out the window at the nacelles, watching the ship at warp. She had finally gotten some real sleep and a decent meal. She was holding a cup of cappuccino, sipping on it. When everyone had arrived and took their seat she sat as well. Looking around the table she smiled.

"It's good to be back, thank you everyone for tailing that Hirogen ship to that planet. So how far away from that planet we were surveying was I?" Alona asked.

"Around nine light years ma'am, the Hirogen didn't seem to care about covering their tracks or about us hunting them down" Korlaas said.

"These Hirogen don't. I assume everyone has read my report of what happened while I was on the Hirogen ship?"

"Yes captain, I find that there seems to be a Hirogen splinter group or some other internal faction that doesn't like to hunt photonic lifeforms intriguing. While their ship was in orbit, Commander Radis hacked in and gleamed some information from their computer" T'saal said looking to Radis.

Radis cleared his throat, "Yes, this splinter group you encountered, ma'am, call themselves the "True Hunters" other Hirogen also call them the "True Hirogen", regardless they seem to have been an internal issue within the Hirogen Hegemony. Its astonishing that the Hirogen Hegemony even exists, though its a relatively new government and they have only one sector of space under their control. When the True Hunters split from the Hegemony, they took a large populus of the younger generation with them. Much of the younger generation of Hirogen believe that hunting holographic prey is for initiate hunters or those who don't believe in acquiring trophies. They even say its for those who don't like the sight of blood.

"Regardless of the reason, the True Hirogen have become a thorn in many sides of the various species around this area of space. Some of them have turned to raiding as well hunting prey, their technology has also improved. It looks like they have taken pages from the Jem'Hadar handbook such as personal cloaking fields, shield penetrating transporters, and transporter inhibitors. We think they have somehow acquired this technology by capturing and interrogating holographic Jem'Hadar or maybe emulating them. Nothing from their records or ours indicate a Jem'Hadar or Dominion vessel has come out this far into space, however, they did indicate how they acquired this technology so we can only speculate. Also from what I have gathered, they haven't extended their hunting ranges beyond the next 80 or so light years" he finished.

Alona looked at Kim, "Do you remember if Admiral Janeway gave them any Federation files for their holographic systems?"

"She gave them an Optronic Data Core, so, I believe that there was information on the every Alpha Quadrant species and then some. We had received several data transfers from their communication network before the buoy was destroyed. In those data transfers we received information about the Dominion War, Jem'Hadar, Changlings etcetera, etcetera. Its quite possible that they found information about a great warrior race called the Jem'Hadar, as well as Changlings. I can imagine their delight at hunting a species that can turn into anything it wants" Kim said, everyone around the table nodded.

"I think we need to investigate this further. I would like to at least find out how they acquired this technology or if they took it with them when they left their Hegemony. If all Hirogen have this technology then there is nothing we can do about it, however, if only the True Hirogen have it then perhaps we can figure out a way to level the playing field with them. We acquire this technology ourselves somehow, then finding out a way to defend against it, from there, we can inform all other species which should help with defending against raids and such. Ideas?" Alona asked.

"Perhaps it would be best to speak to the Hegemony first before we begin to track down a True Hirogen vessel to steal the technology" T'saal said.

"I think thats our initial step, but we need to keep our sensors active for a True Hirogen vessel in case we need to track one down" Kim said.

"It would be prudent that we be ready for battle at any moment, their vessels may have cloaking devices as well" Kolaas said.

Everyone around the table agreed.

"I have a question ma'am, its off topic though" Drake said.

"Ask away Morgana, you know me" Alona said.

"Well" she looked around the table, "It's about you ma'am. How were you able to lift a 160 kilo being and be able to kill said being with a single blow, not to mention being able to dent their body armor. When I scanned it, it turned out to be made out of a composite monotonium material. Their bones are three times as strong as a humans, therefore, making them three times harder to break. Also, ma'am, your skull should have been crushed by the Hirogen that hit you from behind. Your report stated you fought and killed three more Hirogen on board their ship, without weapons. So I am curious, are you human?" Drake said.

"Lieutenant!" Kim said.

"No, its ok" Alona said raising her hand as a calming gesture.

'Great, well, I guess its time to tell them about me. Thankfully, the doc hasn't said anything about me yet' Alona thought.

Following the same thought process, Drake looked at Dr. Novana, "Doctor, is the Captain a human?"

"Now just a damn minute, you know thats privileged information. I am not required nor obligated to tell you shit, if you want to know that information, the captain is the one to tell you. Don't go trying to get into my medical files either, if you do, I'll shut you down myself" Novana said.

"Does it matter whether or not shes a human, the fact is we got her back safe and sound, we can continue heading for home" Radis said.

"The captain was a security and tactical officer for years, shes learned to fight well, perhaps you are mistaken about her physical capabilities" Viir-Keim said.

Chaos ensued, people were beginning to talk over one another. Alona sighed. She figured this moment would come sooner or later, she just hoped it would have come in a somewhat more private setting. She knew that Novana must know something is wierd by her medical file, being as blacked out as it is. Still, she should tell them the truth, after all, their going to be living, eating, and working together for the next 18 to 20 years. Wait a minute, has Viir-Keim looked at her service record? How the hell did he know she had been a security chief and tactical officer for years before she went into command? She stood, quieting everyone.

"Computer, seal and soundproof the observation lounge, level nine-alpha classified briefing in progress. Authorization Benson-Delta-Foxtrot-Pi-Two-Zero-Four"

"Authorization confirmed, no listening devices detected, soundproofing compartment. Occupants may feel slight pressure in their ears...soundproofing complete, compartment is now sealed" the computer said.

Alona took a sip from her cappuccino, "What I am about to tell you is classified at class three-level-nine, whatever is said in this room does not leave this space. If it does, I will have to enact clause six of your commission. That means I have the authorization to terminate your commission and throw you into the brig for the duration of our voyage home. When we get home, you report to the maximum security penal facility located at Gardner Island on Earth for indictiment, procecution, and judgement with probable life imprisonment. Any questions before I proceed?" she said looking around the table, everyone else quickly glanced around the table as well.

"Alright, I am a human, through and through, however, I am different as you can tell. So, uh, I'm an Augment. I was created in the latter part of the Eugenics Wars, a prototype, specially designed to kill other Augments, superior in some ways too but in many ways equal, a super-Augment if you will. I am not the only prototype out there, you see, I have two other siblings, a brother and a sister. I digress. Lets see, well, in the year 2293, an Excelsior-class starship, the U.S.S. Anchorage was patrolling along the Romulan Border of the Neutral Zone when her sensors detected a weak power source near its position. The captain, a Vulcan named Suraak, ordered the ship to warp to investigate thinking the Romulans might crossing the border cloaked, what she found was much different.

"When the Anchorage arrived at the coordinates of the power source they found a pod, 21 meters long, 18 wide, a long tube. The crew believed that the pod was part of a ship, but later they found out it was a small sleeper ship launched into space. Sensors detected 92 lifesigns aboard, life support and enviromental were barely active so an away team was assembled and beamed over. They found 300 fetus-state cryogenic stasis pods. Of those 300, only 92 were still alive. The other 208 and all four of the adult sleepers cryogenic systems had failed, of course, resulting in their death" Alona said then took another swig of her cappuccino.

"Life support, power, and the cryo-stasis systems were failing so in order to save the fetuses, Captain Suraak brought the pod aboard and hooked it up to the Anchorage's power systems. Then she had medical techs check out the fetuses and an engineering team repair the cryo-stasis systems. The medical staff discovered that the fetuses, we, were Augments. When the report came in, Starfleet's knee jerk reaction was to beam the pod out into space and put a couple photon torpedoes into it but Suraak talked to Starfleet Command. She convinced Starfleet that it was immoral to kill 92 humans, especially fetuses that were in cryogenic stasis. We couldn't hurt anybody, we weren't even full grown babies.

"She managed to change their mind, she even got the authorization to have the ships Chief Medical Officer take 15 fetuses and attempt to correct the known genetic malformation. You will remember the classes on the Federations Augment Reclamation Project of the 2280s? Its where they took all the Augment babies they had in stasis and genetically "adjusted" them into normal, albeit, long-lived humans. Claiming that the project was a relative success, they attempted to make the same genetic adjustments that they had done on the other augment babies back on earth, but it didnt work. They ended up killing all 15 fetuses, it turned out that there was an extra dormant gene inserted into the genetic coding of these fetuses that became active when certain genetic adjustments were made, such as reverting their strength back to normal or their speed back to normal.

"When this discovery was made, Anchorage reported back to Starfleet Command, in which command recalled her back to Earth. From there, they spent years and unfortunately several fetuses attempting to make us human, eventually, of the 92 survivors only 68 remained. The Federation didn't want to kill any more fetuses so they asked Starfleet to place the remaining fetuses in permanent stasis storage, never to see the light of day, however, again, Suraak stepped in and requested one more attempt at adjusting the fetuses. Grudgingly, Starfleet agreed and authorized eight fetuses for adjustment, the rest were placed in storage. Suraak had a plan, since full adjustment was killing the fetuses, she opted for the malformation to be corrected and then the children would be surrogated, born, but raised on Vulcan.

"With the children being raised on Vulcan, they were going to receive the Vulcan emotion suppression training specifically targeting aggression and anger control. If aggression and anger were culled, ambition controlled through achievements, while fostering other normal human emotions, the children should be successful, productive members of society. So, eight Augment children were born, five girls, three boys, then sent to Vulcan parents who did not have children or were unable to produce children. By this time, it was the year 2317, Captain Suraak had retired to raise me, Suraak and her husband, Terok, had not been able to produce children so I am their daughter. I love them as much as any child loves their parents, to me they are Mom and Dad, they are the only parents I have ever known. As they were raising me, they found out that we must have been some sort of super-augments. We were stronger, smarter, more agile, faster than average augments. In fact, proof of that was me in my infancy. I was walking by four months old, speaking complete sentences by six months old, fully expressing myself by eight months old, by a year old I was reading elementary works" Several of her officers shook their heads in amazement. Complete sentences by six months old? "Mother had given me my first name, father was one of the aides to the ambassador to Earth so he gave me a human middle name, then I decided to take up the surname of my surrogate mother.

"The Vulcans studied us as well as taught us and raised us. You see, the average augment is designed to be remarkably agile, five times as strong and twice as intelligent as a normal human, we're resistant to sickness, have enhanced senses, possess heart muscles twice as strong and our lung efficiency 50% better than a normal human. Our blood contains platelets capable of regenerating from practically any disease or toxin. It can also be used to cure or revive medical subjects by a blood transfusion. Normal augments also had twice the average lifespan of a normal human. Even our resistance to direct energy weapons is improved, it can take multiple shots with a phaser to stun us. We're even capable of resisting the Vulcan nerve pinch and mind melding. That's just a normal augment.

"Whoever created us was a geneticist genius. Why? Because it must've taken years to perfect us. My muscles are, for the lack of a better term, advanced. They make me five times stronger than a normal augment, my bones are five times stronger than a normal human to help cope with the muscles, I have a greater amount of blood in my body - an extra three pints from what I have been told, three times the lifespan of a normal human. Me and my siblings natural regenerative healing processes is even better, I can heal from cuts and stabs in moments, broken bones take a few hours. If I suffer from an amputation, I can "naturally" reattach the limb and be fully healed in a couple days. To be honest, I don't think I could be assimilated by the Borg, I heal too quickly. I have found I can resist low kill settings on phasers and I expect to live to about 450 years old, not to mention I am three times smarter than a normal human, twice as agile and twice as fast as normal human as well" She took another swig of her cappuccino.

"Draw backs? Sure, my metabolism is through the stratosphere. I don't like sharing how much I eat around people, but" she sighed. "I am kind of a glutton. I have a sweet tooth as you can tell" she held up her cup of cappuccino "Alcohol and synthol don't go well with me. And..." she looked around the table and took a deep breath while staring at the middle of the table. "I can't have any children of my own, unless I adopt. I can understand why too, but, well...I'm sterile. So is my brother and sister. Remember I said there were eight of us? Theres only three of us left now. The first of us died serving on the Enterprise-C when the Romulans tore her apart. Three of us died at Wolf-359, in fact, one of us was serving on the Endeavour-B when he died. The last of us to die had perished in the Dominion War, so theres just Justin, Marie, and me. I'm the last Starfleet officer. Justin is in M.A.C.O. and Marie is a civilian teaching at Starfleet Medical.

"So theres my true history and some private, personal things I haven't shared with anyone in years. Remember, this information is classified, clause six of your comissions is now in effect about this information. If you are going to talk amongst yourselves about it, make sure you're in a sealed, secured space. Any questions?" Alona asked, swigged some more cappuccino then winced. It got cold.

"Uh, ma'am, how are you able to serve in Starfleet, let alone command a starship?" Kim asked.

"Starfleet allowed five of us to attend the Academy and serve on a trial basis. We weren't allowed to have our own command nor be able to become first officer of a starship, so, when we achieved sufficient rank for a command we were going to be assigned to an Admirals staff. Agents from Section 31 tailed us while we served on starships for years, I guess they were making sure we weren't going to try anything, but I think over the years, as we served exemplarily and died defending the Federation and fighting for Starfleet, Starfleet forgot about us and their promises. When I served as first officer aboard a Nova-class starship I had my suspicions, but when I took up being XO on the Brunswick, shes a Galaxy-class, thats when I figured that Starfleet had stopped caring or had forgotten about us" Alona said.

"Ma'am, you said you were born in 2317?" Drake asked.

"Yes"

Drake glanced around the table, looked back at her and smirked, "Whatever you're doing, keep it up, cause you look good for being 74"


	9. Chapter 9, Where the fuck are we?

_Captain's Log, Stardate 67896.3 - I wonder if Admiral Janeway had this much trouble with the various species she met while out here. Its been days since we seen them, but for two weeks straight we had non-stop raiders come at varying times attempting to steal things from us. Some of the raiders were polite enough to hail us before attacking. Others were masquerading as traders or freighter captains, I guess they thought we had a smaller sensor envelope or perhaps sensors that aren't that sophisticated. Sure enough though, we detected their weapons. According to Voyagers database we'll be nearing known Krenim space in about two weeks should we remain on course, the database also indicated that the Krenim area of space is under dispute at the time. Hopefully, they had finished disputing the territory._

Endeavour had been traveling for days, for the most part unmolested. Occasionally, raiders have come and attempted to take something from them or freighter captains offering trades of stuff, however, Alona refused them from boarding Endeavour, while keeping the ship at yellow alert during the whole time. She remembered a few instances where Janeway had allowed another species to board Voyager and from there, problems rose. Her plan wasn't to refuse everyone that came and said hello to them, just species Voyager hadn't met yet.

Other times she's had raiders come by fire on them and try to take something off the ship, however, she'd disable the vessel and then warp out. It was beginning to become monotonous, almost routine on how the raiders would come and attack. Several species using the same tactics to attack and steal from a vessel, while it kept things interesting from time to time, it was still the same tactics. Come in at high warp and intercept Endeavour, try to punch through her shields, get punched back hard, drift away making repairs or warp out. There were a couple times where the raider had shield penetrating transporters, but what they took was easily replaceable via the replicator so Alona left it at that. She felt that it was pointless to chase down a raider over two cases of tricorders, 8 meters of ODN cabling, and a single EPS conduit.

Lately, Endeavour herself had been acting up. LT Bari couldn't figure out exactly what was going on and neither could Alona. Bari's guess was the ship was having issues with being in operation for so long, systems weren't "used" to be operating for such a long period of time. The only way to cope with Endeavour settling into being in operation for so long is just to correct the minor problems as they arise, then slowly increase the number of times the system undergoes maintenance and diagnostics. If a system has a monthly maintenance schedule, then it undergoes maintenance twice or three times a month until the system settles down and begins to operate without having to be looked at so often. While this may increase the workload of the Engineering Department, Bari told Alona it wouldn't cause too much of a issue, it might even keep the engineers busy enough to make it feel like the trip is going by faster. Drake offered the services of the operations department to help if Engineering got bogged down.

Walking along the corridors, Alona noticed that the fact of being on board the ship for 18 to 20 years had finally sunk in. They've been underway for about a month and a half now, some people already look a little worn. She wondered how they would handle going through Borg space, so she diverted the ship to a M-class moon that they detected on sensors. The planet was orbiting a G-type star, second planet from the sun, however it a simple rock. It's super-thin atmosphere of Argon, Helium, and Ammonia made it uninhabitable, while the surface resembled a brown-yellow version of Mars. One of its orbiting moons though was chock full of life, its climate was tropical in most places, with some deserts and some jungle. All bodies of water on the moon were fresh water, so it was naturally humid, but overall, the moon seemed like paradise. The only issue with the whole moon was that its gravity was slightly strong at 1.03g. Quietly, Alona had the moon marked down as a possible location for a starbase to be put in.

When Endeavour came into orbit over the moon, it seemed like most of the crew didn't notice. Alona had extensive scans done to ensure there was no repeat of last time they came into orbit over an uninhabited planet. For that extra assurance, Colonel Reed had a platoon broken down into squads, beamed into various transport and shuttle landing sites, then had them thoroughly search the area for anything out of the ordinary for an uninhabited planet. After finding nothing, the marines set up camps, some pre-fabricated huts, then brought down plenty of recreational equipment. From there, the marines remained on the surface as Alona made the announcement.

"To all hands, this is the Captain speaking. As I have walked below decks, in engineering, our science labs, our armories and mess decks, I have noticed everyone seems a little weary, tired, worn down. So, as of this moment, I am authorizing a weeks liberty on the M-class moon we're in orbit of. The moon is uninhabited, its weather is reminiscent of Risa, nice, tropical, but a little humid. I've had our M.A.C.O. platoons sweep and secure it as well as set up camps, tents and small pre-fabricated buildings then bring down recreational equipment and tools in select transport and shuttle landing sites. The platoons will be remaining on the surface while we're in orbit over the moon. While we're at liberty the ship will be in an Alpha-10 status, so remember: have fun while your down there. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty! All hands are authorized liberty at their department heads discretion" Alona said.

Ships in Starfleet had several different statuses to be in from Alpha to Charlie. Alpha status being the most ready-able with Charlie being the least ready-able. Most ships maintained a Bravo-30 to Bravo-01 status meaning the ship should be ready to leave orbit in 30 minutes to an hour. Alpha-10 status meant the ship should be ready to leave orbit within 10 minutes and/or be on standby for an emergency beam out of all surface away teams and crew within 10 seconds. While an emergency beam out of such a large amount of people can put a strain on the systems, it can be done should an emergency arise.

She looked around the bridge, everyone was looking at her, "Go play, have fun" she said, then raised her hand and added, "After we've secured our orbit and the At Orbit bridge watch relieves you" Some of the bridge was was readying to leave when she was speaking. Alona stood, looked around the bridge and stepped into her ready room. She sat down behind her desk and leaned back. She'd been meaning to get some time in a holosuite or the holodeck.

Bari and Drake stepped onto the transporter pad, Bari nodded "Energize" she said. When the shimmering blue light faded she was standing near a beach, the warmth of the air filled her. She breathed in the sweet, flowery air, then took a step and realized the gravity of the moon was a little heavier than shes used to. It didn't matter, she was going to enjoy a day or two soaking up the sun.

Bari glanced over to Drake, "So Morgana, are you capable of tanning?" she asked.  
Drake snorted, "Not in the way you tan. I can control the pigmentation color of my skin though...Odd" she said glancing to her right. Bari looked in the same direction, then smirked.

"He's looking at you, why don't you go over there and talk to him" she said.

"I do not have any interests in a romantic relationship at the moment. Besides, he is alive, I am not" Drake replied.

"And? You're gorgeous to look at, in fact you're turning some heads now"  
Bari and Drake glanced around. Indeed, both of them were making some of the men make some sneaking glances over, as Bari was in a revealing bikini, while Drake was in a bathing suit that left some to the imagination, although, not much.

"They will gain nothing by having a relationship with me. I am unable to produce children, my emotions are programs that I-"

"They are still emotions. Are you capable of love? How about experiencing happiness?"

"I am capable of both, but they are not true emotions"

"It doesn't matter Morgana, now get your ass over there and talk to him, look at him, he can't stop staring at you"

Drake looked at Bari, then over to the young marine, she nodded and walked over to the marine. Bari smiled and continued on, she needed to find a tent or pre-fab to claim and relax.

Harry Kim and Daro Radis were up on the nearby foothills overlooking the beach-side transport site. They had seen a good spot to sit and watch the sea roll in and out, marking it on a map they had been creating on the tricorder as they continued higher. They were following several lizards they'd seen that resembled geckos only they were the size of Gila Monsters when they stopped at a small plateau, they both were thirsty and sat down, digging into their packs for something to snack on and some water. Kim felt great, his pulse was calming down and it felt like it must be 31 or 32 degrees celsius out, there was a calm sea breeze coming along. Kim was facing the ocean, swigging on some water, taking in the heat, when he spotted something unusual.

"Harry, theres a cave up there" Radis said, his back towards the ocean.

"Daro, is that what I think it is?" he asked. Radis was still sizing up the mountain, making a mental hiking trail when he turned back to the ocean. He saw it too.

"What the hell is that?"

Kim began digging in his pack, "This moon was supposed to be uninhabited. We made extensive scans, I know we did, I was the one that made them" Radis said. Kim pulled out binoculars, before he raised them to his eyes he checked the position of the sun, it was above him

"Looks like a mast, theres a radar dish on it" Kim said, then handed the binoculars to Radis.

"Air Search Radar, You can tell by how its angled, also its not a flat bar like an old surface radar system, Regardless, the question is what is an old human ship doing way out here in the Delta Quadrant, on an uninhabited M-class moon"  
"Can you see anyone on it?"

Radis put them back up to his eyes, "No, its still below the horizon, I can see smoke rising though, probably from the stack. Its getting closer too"

Kim sighed, "Shit" He then pulled out his combadge from his pocket and tapped it.

"XO to all surface crew, away teams, and Endeavour, Commander Radis and I have spotted an unidentified surface ship headed towards beach site four, ETA is perhaps two hours. Repeat, an unidentified surface ship headed towards beach site four, Endeavour please advise"

"Standby" a voice replied. Kim knew they were frantically scanning the surface now.

"Endeavour to beach site four, be advised, an extremely high amount of chroniton particles have been detected in your area, repeat, extremely high chroniton particles have been-" the voice from Endeavour paused, "Oh shit, Beach Site Four, Temporal Event detected near your location, standby for emergency beam out"

Alona was enjoying herself in holosuite 7, working as a bartender in a late-1990s night club. The program was period based, including the music which was playing at the period level of an ear-bleeding 110 decibels. What talk she could hear was a little bit of the Eugenics Wars but most of the chatter was about the music, the looming new millennium, booze and so on. Dressed in the period clothing, Alona felt closer to home while running this particular program, she also somehow had the uncanny knack to fall right into place here, to blend with the crowd and how the holograms acted. She came to know the many slang terms for some drinks, even during her off duty hours she spent several hours going over the various names of mixed drinks and their ingredients as well as taking time to learn the various labels of the bottles of liquour and so on. She was in the middle of mixing a Mai Tai when the program automatically paused as the Red Alert klaxon began to wail.

"Captain, please come to the bridge" Kolaas said through her combadge.

"On my way, Computer, save time index and end program" she said while walking out the door, moments later she was on the bridge.

"Report" Alona said, walking onto the bridge.

"A few moments ago Commander Kim commed in and reported he saw an unidentified surface ship headed towards the shore, a few seconds later we detected an extremely large amount of chroniton particles nearby Beach Site Four, then the computer reported to us a temporal event was in progress. Afterwards a temporal energy wave started forming a ring around the planet, according to sensors indicate that the energy wave isn't very power-" Kolaas said, turning to face Alona then stopped when he saw her.

She hadn't changed out of the clothes from the holodeck, her top was very revealing, almost just a sports bra with a small, unbuttoned, see-through blouse and cut-off jean shorts. Her normally pony-tailed hair was let down, she was a little sweaty, smelled of booze, and unknown to others, her ears were ringing. To Kolaas, he had never seen a human female dressed that way, let alone the captain. He had never thought a human female could be so...appealing.

"Oogle later Ensign" Alona said with a smirk, "You were saying?"

Kolaas quickly cleared his throat, "The sensors indicate that the energy wave isn't that powerful and the computer recommended that we emit a chroniton field throughout the ship to keep us in temporal sync. Mr. T'saal agreed"

Alona nodded, "As do I, very well, you're relieved Ensign. Bridge, this is the Captain, I have the deck and conn" The bridge echoed with the watch saying "Aye"

"Have we beamed anyone off the surface?" Alona asked.

"No, ma'am the massive increase of chroniton particles prevent us from beaming anyone off, if we beamed someone off, it could cause some serious problems when they rematerialized, such as reversals, I wouldn't suggest it" T'saal said.

A reversal is a nasty effect that a massive amount of chroniton particles could have have on transporters. Basically, people revert into child states or into non-existence. Other cases are the exact opposite, rapid aging until death occurs. The same effects can happen to limbs of the body or organs.

"What about shuttles?"

"The runabouts could do it, they have enough power to emit a chroniton field to keep them in sync, but that wet navy ship that the XO spotted, what do you want to do about it?"

"Good question, what do the sensors tell us about it?"

T'saal began entering in commands, his brows furrowed.

"Interesting. Ma'am, the navy ship is no longer on sensors. The chroniton particles are dissipating from beach site four, however, the energy ring is intensifying" he said.

"Are our people on the runabout?" Alona said.

"Yes ma'am"

"Good, see if you can contact them, if we can, tell them to get their asses back here"

"Ma'am, the particles have dissipated enough for transporter usage" another bridge watchstander said.

"Fine, beam the whole damn runabout aboard"

"Ma'am, that could put a major strain on the-" T'saal stopped when Alona looked at him, "Energizing" he said after he entered a few commands in.

"Beam it into the primary shuttlebay"

"Aye, ma'am"

Minutes ticked by and the bridge was silent, only broken by T'saal reports of the energy wave intensifying. Alona ordered the ship to back away from the moon. While Endeavour was easing away from the moon, the wave finally intensified enough to explode outward. What happened next was the weirdest energy-based, scientific find that had ever happened to a Starfleet vessel.

The wave, when it exploded formed a funnel. The funnel began to act very similar to a quantum singularity, and began to suck in everything nearby, including the Endeavour. Fortunately, the funnel didn't have the crushing gravity that a singularity did, but it did have the "suction" that one had. Endeavours sensors were confused, inside the funnel, it detected an atmosphere, then nebulous gases, then static space, then sea water. T'saal couldn't make any of it out.

"Full reverse!" Alona said.

Kolaas entered in commands, the ship was at full impulse going in reverse.

"Ma'am, we're at full reverse. We're not going anywhere"

"Very well, spin us around, pick anywhere but here, Warp 9, engage"

As commanded, Endeavour whipped around, her nacelles facing the funnels mouth. She jumped to warp, well, according to the ships systems they were at warp, but obviously, they were not going anywhere but towards the mouth of the funnel, only slightly slower. Energy discharges similar to lightning bolts began to arc around the ship.

"Mr. Kolaas?" Alona asked.

"Ma'am, we're at warp but-" Kolaas was interrupted as a nearby EPS conduit exploded. The ship began to shake and vibrate hard.

"Engineering to Bridge, Captain, EPS conduits are rupturing throughout the ship, systems are beginning to fail. We need to drop out of warp or the ships gonna tear itself apart"

"T'saal, can the sensors make anything out within the funnel?" Alona asked.

"No ma'am, but the vacuum of the funnel is strengthening, those energy discharges are the main culprit with our EPS conduits exploding. They are also causing a power drain throughout all systems of the ship. I would suggest we drop to to impulse, then we could try to collapse the funnel with a photon torpedo"

The turbolift doors opened, Kim and Radis stepped out, they quickly took their stations.

"Glad you boys decided to show up, Viir-Keim, target the center-" Alona was interrupted as several more EPS conduits exploded on the bridge. Then Endeavour lost main power.

Drifting, with no control of herself she entered the funnel. On board, her crew were frantically trying to get power back, emergency back ups were beginning to come online slowly due to the EPS damage. Environmental and Life Support were the first two to come online. The ship was rocking and shaking. There were bangs on the hull that several decks were reporting. Emergency systems were starting to not respond, artificial gravity was fluctuating on the bridge.

Fortunately, Endeavour went through the funnel without colliding with any large debris, although many small nearby orbiting debris did bounce off the hull. She tumbled, rolled, and spun, her maneuvering and primary ship control were offline. Several minutes passed then she exited the funnel as it begun to collapse around her. Still listing through the dark of space, a couple additional emergency back up systems came online: communications and shields.

When Endeavours communications systems came online, the computer activated her emergency distress signal automatically. It was something that none of her crew could not have stopped, as it had determined that since many critical systems were not responding, emergency repair teams were being hampered by lack of artificial gravity in some areas. A fire had broken out on deck 9, section 92, frame 1332, compartment 279-J, it had not been suppressed and was beginning to spread to nearby compartments. Automatic Fire Suppression systems were offline throughout the ship.

The computer also detected that the warp core was offline, engineering teams were feverishly trying to get it started back up, however, the realignment of the dilithium crystals was taking longer than expected. EPS conduits had exploded or ruptured in several areas on practically every deck. Navigational deflectors were offline, the structural integrity field was barely online, internal sensors were offline in several areas, external sensors were offline.

Alona knew Endeavour was hurt, she could practically feel the pain of the ship. She knew that it was because of the EPS conduit flaws, like most Sovereigns had. She had plenty of power, just at many times, she had too much instead of too little. The warp core was offline but Bari's people were working their asses off to get it back online. Thankfully, Environmental and Life Support were still online, albeit on emergency backups. She had Drake work with T'saal in getting the external sensors back online, lack of information was her concern at the moment.

Alona wanted to get her bearings before getting main power restored, auxiliary power was drained from going through the funnel. Emergency power was slow to come online which prolonged many problems. Emergency batteries were at least keeping the very critical systems and the computer online. She looked around the bridge, everyone was doing their duty to get systems back online. She stood and stepped over to the engineering station and began working on helping the computer reroute emergency power through still operating power conduits and relays.

It was kind of refreshing to roll up her sleeves and get back to working on engineering problems. She had served as a second engineer on a ship before, then chief engineer, so the tricks of the trade began to come back to her. After a few moments, she managed to restore emergency power to internal sensors throughout the ship. Immediately, a flood of emergency messages and notifications began to list itself.

Alona tapped her combadge, "Bridge to any emergency repair team on deck nine, near section 92. There is a class alpha-charlie fire beginning to get out of control in compartment 279-J" she said.

"Copy bridge, repair team 19 is en route" a voice replied.

Now to getting power to everywhere else. She stood and walked over to the master systems display, then began working there. It seemed like she was there for only a few seconds.

"Captain, we have restored power back to short range external sensors" Drake said while performing a cursory sensor sweep.

"There is a vessel approaching, sensors are registering it traveling at warp 6.7, ETA is 10 minutes" Drake said.

"Can you identify it?" Alona asked, going back to the engineering station.

"No ma'am, the sensors identify it as an unknown Starfleet Constitution-class vessel, due to the detected ship silhouette"

"What? An unknown Starfleet Constitution-class vessel?"

"Skip, the computer automatically activated the distress signal, I think they are responding. We're being hailed" Radis said.

"Morgana, check the chronometer, what year is it?"

Drake entered a couple commands in, "Captain, according to sensors, we're five light years from Ceti Alpha 6. Chronometer reads June 19, 2260"

"Fuck" Alona said.

As expected no one took noticed of a man none of them had seen before on board even though he was in an older Starfleet uniform, circa mid-2370s. As he walked through the corridors, making his way to the bridge, he was amused as these primitive beings scurried about, trying to bring their precious computer systems back online. He snorted as one glanced up at him and tried to give him orders, but he kept walking. He didn't want to waste his time with that particular being, his goal sat on the bridge, commanding her crew. He thought about just appearing on the bridge, but that didn't have as much as a dramatic effect as just simply walking onto the bridge from the turbolift. He stepped into the turbolift, no one else was in it and it shut the doors. He didn't say a word and the lift began its way to the bridge. When the doors opened and he stepped out, he grinned.

The captain, turned back to see who stepped through the lift, looked at him for a moment before standing. He was amused at the look on her face, part astonishment, part anger, part frustration, and of course, fear. He could see it in her eyes, she hid it well but she was afraid, perhaps not for her own life, but for her ship and her crews lives.

"You" is all she said. How dare she? She couldn't even say his name. What has Starfleet come to these days? At least Jean-Luc and Kathy called him by his name.

"Its Q, not 'U'" He said with a smile, then added, "Welcome home captain"


End file.
